


a little fun every day

by Leyenn



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Anal Sex, Aphrodisiacs, Beards (Facial Hair), Begging, Betazoid, Betazoid women are natural doms, Biting, Blades, Blow Jobs, Bodyswap, Bondage, Bruise Play, Bruises, Butt Plugs, Casual Sex, Cock Rings, Collars, Coming out as D/s, Consensual Kink, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Fluff, Edgeplay, Empathic sex, Empathy, Engagement, Episode Tag, Everything I know about kink I learned from fandom, Exhibitionism, F/M, Face-Sitting, Fear Play, Feels, Fingerfucking, Friendship, Fucking Machines, Glans Rings, Glass Sex Toys Seriously Try Em, Hand Jobs, Healthy Relationships, Holodecks/Holosuites, Hurts So Good, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I think this is officially an AU now, Kinktober, Kinktober 2017, Kneeling, Knifeplay, Language Kink, Languages and Linguistics, Laughter, Leather, Leather Jackets, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Lingerie, Love Bites, Massage, Master/Slave, Masturbation, Medical Kink, Mental Link, Mindfuck, Multi, Nipple Clamps, Nipple Play, Nipple Torture, OTP Feels, Object Insertion, Object Penetration, Oral Sex, Orgasm Control, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Overstimulation, Ownership, POV Outsider, Pain, Painplay, Pegging, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Movie(s), Public Display of Affection, Razors, Restraints, Role Reversal, Rough Sex, Roughness, S&M, Seriously I don't know how this went here, Sex Toys, Shaving, Sleepy Sex, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Straight Razors, Sub Will, Submission, Subspace, Synesthesia, Teasing, Telepathic Bond, Telepathic Sex, Telepathy, The Holodeck is for Porn, Threesome - F/F/M, Threesome - F/M/M, True Love, Turbolift, Vaginal Fingering, Voyeurism, Wall Sex, Will and Deanna are the sweetest kinksters you'll ever meet, Worship, Xenophilia, and Beverly is the best BFF ever, collaring, coming out as kinky, oh so many feels, so many feelings, turbolift sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-01-09 23:26:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 50,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12286428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: "Remember - you have to have a little fun, every day."Post-Insurrection. Chapter a day for Kinktober 2017. Will and Deanna take up the challenge.Master list of prompts ishere.





	1. Sleepy Sex / Aphrodisiacs

"Good advice," Will says, his hand warm in hers, and Deanna smiles and squeezes his fingers.

Without a warp core they have to limp out of the Briar Patch and home at impulse, which means when she wakes up the next morning the view through Will's bedroom window is still a dirty orange-brown, a thick soup faintly lit by the retreating Ba'ku star but blocking out all others.

Will's spooned up against her in his sleep and now he nuzzles her neck, inhaling her scent, and she smiles sleepily and lets her eyes fall closed again. In his mind, even half-asleep as he is, she can still feel the after-exhilaration of battle, and the fierceness with which he's proud to have defended the Ba'ku from the Federation - and the Federation from itself. Herself, she's exhausted from trekking through the mountains and back, but there's still some of that exhilaration running through her too… not to mention that the effects of the Briar Patch are still making themselves felt.

She nestles back against him, and her smile, still sleepy, turns slightly catlike with pleasure. _Definitely_ making themselves felt.

_Will?_

_Hm._ He's not quite awake and not especially eager to be, until she presses her hips back against his and heat uncurls along the deep bronze-gold connection between them. He's already hard, and while that's not exactly a surprising morning occurrence, the Briar Patch is definitely adding a little extra… insistence… to the way he rocks his hips in response to her advances and his cock pushes, already damp at the tip, against the small of her back.

"Mmm…" The way he hums in her ear is so deep it's almost a growl. Deanna, eyes still closed, runs her hand down his arm until she finds his fingers and links hers through them, squeezing gently. She cants her hips, gives his mind a gentle push, and he shifts almost unconsciously; then his cock is tucked under her ass and all it takes is a slow, deep breath and another lazy movement and Will is sliding into her, with enough friction from the lack of foreplay that she bites her lip and lets out a soft, low purr of her own.

Will tightens his arms around her; she feels his eyelids flutter open against her skin and squeezes his fingers harder.

_It feels good,_ and she presses the feel of it into his mind so that he won't try and stop because oh, it does, it's one of the best feelings when her body is almost not ready and she can really _feel_ every hot, hard inch of him all the way inside her.

Will kisses behind her ear, relaxing at the touch of her mind and pushing deeper. _Mmm,_ you _feel good._

They're both too sleepy for much more than a slow, subtle, almost idle rhythm, and that only makes it even more intense. He hardly slides out of her at all and she can feel _all_ of him with every movement, a slow knot of heat tightening low in her belly and in the tangle of their half-awake minds, pulling them tighter together…

Will shifts his hand from under hers, resting his palm against her stomach for a moment. She wraps her fingers lightly around his wrist and he strokes his hand down, gently pushes her knee up just a little, just enough, and then his fingers are on her clit and even not really conscious he still knows how to touch, so well-learned it's almost instinct and so easy when he's sharing every wave of pleasure as it rolls through her.

That's all it is, for long, pleasure-filled minutes: simple, unhurried circles of his fingers on her clit and the slow rocking of their bodies together, Will breathing against her bare skin and their minds so entangled, hot and bright and shining and then -

Will's breath catches; Deanna lets out a soft, " _oh…_ " as that deepest wave of pleasure crests and breaks and she comes with a full-body shudder, squeezing so tight around him and pushing so deep into his mind that he follows her over the edge with another rough growl, curling tighter around her and pressing his face into the curve of her neck. He goes utterly still as he comes, completely inside her: she can feel every hot pulse of his cock and that sudden, wet warmth and it's so good, so intimate, it makes her almost breathless even beyond the pleasure of it. His fingers still on her clit and she covers his hand with hers, squeezes tight.

_Mmmm… good morning, imzadi._

Will grins, broad and smooth-skinned against her neck. _Good morning._

 

*


	2. Dirty Talk

They don't intend it, exactly. It's just that the effects of the Briar Patch don't exactly switch off like a light even once they're clear of the stellar soup, and it's never been exactly top of either of their priorities to keep their hands - or minds - off each other in their free time, even before they found themselves doubting why they've ever resisted the pull of this.

And it really is good advice.

Deanna isn't off duty for another few hours; even on this hopefully uneventful trip home, someone has to sit in the big chair. He could have stayed up on the bridge with her, but he's got a hell of a lot of explaining to do to Starfleet and a lot of fast-talked promises to back up, so he goes off duty and takes to his cabin with a large black coffee and a PADD. At least at impulse, he'll have plenty of time to write those explanations.

The trouble is, he has plenty of time to write those explanations, and he keeps finding himself writing words about Starfleet's conduct that read far too sharp and sarcastic for an official report. It would be less of a problem if, after half an hour, he didn't realise that Deanna is just as quietly bored.

_Nothing interesting going on up there?_

She doesn't feel surprised at his thought appearing in her mind; that soft warmth is the feeling of her smile. _There's a binary star three light years away, does that count?_

He chuckles, taking a sip of coffee. _Sounds fascinating._

_I can think of more fascinating things,_ and the image she sends him - her fingertips exploring his still-smooth cheeks, trailing down his naked chest - is definitely higher in his estimation than a binary star, or any Starfleet report.

_Fascinating isn't quite the word,_ and he sends her back a carefully crafted image of his own: Deanna naked against the couch where he's sitting now, as he crawls over and kneels between her spread thighs and kisses her.

_Mmm…_ A deeper warmth washes through his mind, and he grins.

_Like that?_

Deanna gives him a sense of something comfortable and solid at her back; she's sitting in the captain's chair, he realises, and what she sends him isn't an image but the sense of the bridge around her, the delta shift crew working quietly at their stations and stars meandering past on the viewscreen. _Tell me more._

He grins. _Tell?_ Half of how they communicate, especially like this, is images or sensations - even words aren't one dimensional, spoken between their minds, and shaped from feeling more often than how they should sound out loud.

An image of the PADD in his hand. _It seems like you need the practice with words,_ she teases, and he grins to himself.

He frames the image again, just to give her context: the lights a little lower, no work to be seen; his uniform replaced with just the loose pants he wore to bed last night; Deanna where he's already pictured her, nude and reclining comfortably in the corner of his couch, welcoming him with a beckoning smile.

_And what would you be doing, if I were there?_

He smiles, gives her the softness of her lips and the taste of her mouth. _Kissing you,_ because that's an easy question to answer. If he can start anything with kissing Deanna, then that's his go-to choice.

_Just kissing me?_

_Oh, definitely not._ He grins. _Touching you,_ and he fills that with the smooth warmth of her skin, softness over strength wherever his hands go.

Deanna shifts just a little in her chair. _Oh?_

_Mm-hmm. Everywhere, but especially here,_ the feeling of how she shivers, so delightfully, when his fingertips graze her the outside swell of her breasts, _and here,_ in the hollow of her hips, _and definitely here,_ high on the inside of her thighs, where his fingers rest when he's holding her open for his mouth.

Her smile is hot and faintly feral in his head. _Mmm, that sounds like a very thorough plan you have there, Commander._

Oh, he can be thorough, if that's what she wants. He shifts the image a little, just enough - Deanna stretched out along the length of the couch where he could be sitting comfortable on the rug at her side; _put your leg over my shoulder and my mouth on you, run my hands all over your skin…_

The feeling that fills his head is definitely an erotic flush of desire. _I love it when you do that._

_When I put my tongue inside you?_ He doesn't really need to ask, but it does add a subtle pulse of heat to the image, because she _really_ does like that and they both know it. _I love doing that, how you taste, the way you feel. Those little sounds you make._

The web of feeling that always tangles them together is pulsing hot. _And what am I doing, while you're having so much fun?_

_Aside from just enjoying it?_ He sends her a cheeky grin. _What do you want to be doing?_

_Making sure you don't stop,_ and the sketched image changes to put Deanna's hand in his hair, her fingers digging into his scalp as he sucks hard on her clit and she rocks underneath his mouth.

_Touch yourself. Help me make you come._ He shifts her free hand, curls it around her breast, fingertips grazing the tight tip of her nipple. _Just enough that you want more._

Deanna purrs inside his head, full of pleasure and slightly strained need. _Gods, Will, I'm on the bridge, what are we doing-_

_I'm holding you down on my couch and making you touch yourself wherever I can't reach,_ he thinks, reckless and careless and grinning, because he's hard inside his uniform and way too far gone on this to be able to stop now. _I'm tasting everything I can get of you and then I'm biting your clit until you come for me._

Deanna thinks, _Oh, gods,_ slightly strangled but so turned on he aches with her desire as much as his own. _Yes, please._

He grins and with an effort that feels almost Herculean - an effort she definitely taught him to be able to muster - he pulls back and gives her the image of him just sitting here, in uniform, coffee in hand. _I'll be waiting._

 

*


	3. Public / Biting

There's not much to do until they reach starbase in fifteen days, twenty-two hours and sixteen minutes, so it seems as good a time as any for a poker game.

Will hosts, because he's the one who suggests it; Data has the bridge shift but they get Geordi and Worf and Beverly, who drags the Captain into Will's quarters with her arm firmly tucked into his elbow.

It only took about six months aboard the _D_ for their relationship to become shipwide gossip and quite obvious to everyone who really knew them, present company included, so they've never really held back from being affectionate, especially at poker games… But this feels different, somehow, and not just because each time she moves and her dress shifts against her over-sensitised skin, she can feel every one of the half dozen bite marks that Will left on her not an hour before Worf walked through the door.

It takes her until they're settled, she's serving drinks, and she gets Will a Betazoid brandy without asking, that she realises why - that it feels like it did when they were _home_ , the first home they had together, before this family that's around them now.

They're not scared any more, and the intensity of freedom that brings with it is even more exhilarating than battle.

Will puts his hand on the small of her back, just lightly, as if he simply can't imagine not touching her while she's standing there. She hands Beverly, sitting to his left, her tall glass of Aldebaran wine - and Will's hand slides around her waist, his palm coming to rest right over the bruise his mouth left on the rise of her hip bone and _press_ , gently and then not so gentle and then hard enough to send a burst of electric heat up her spine.

She twitches, just enough that Beverly's eyebrow goes up and Will grins, hot and dirty in her head and playful out loud. She shoves him with her other hip and his grin only gets wider.

"Sit here," he says, open and easy, tugging her down into his lap. She laughs under her breath and brushes her lips against his, winding her arms around his neck.

"Mm." She smiles playfully. "It'll be very hard not to see your cards."

Will tips his forehead against hers. "I don't think I can keep you out right now anyway," and he might be grinning but it's a soft confession, given an undercurrent of love and absolute joy.

Geordi chuckles and sweeps the hand he's dealt for Deanna back into the deck.

 

*


	4. Begging

Will screws his eyes shut and throws his head back and Deanna laughs softly, gives his cock another long, tight, exquisitely slow stroke that pulls a choked groan from his throat. He's been on the edge for what feels like _hours_ \- every square millimeter of his skin is hot as sin and Deanna's weight against his chest is all that's holding him down against the bed and he _needs,_ there's hardly anything left in him except how much he just _needs to come_ …

Deanna nips lightly at the strained line of his neck; her smile is wicked and gentle all at once, deep in his head where she's pressing down against his pleasure, deliberately holding it back… and then she presses just a little more, rubs her fingertip over the slit of his cock again and he grips the sheets even tighter and bucks against her hand, aching and desperate.

" _Fuck…_ " It's like he's on fire, so good and too good and not enough, whatever he does it's not enough, won't be enough until she lets him come, _fuck_ but he wants to come - "oh god, please -" _please, please, imzadi please_

Deanna kisses him and he opens his mouth eagerly, hungrily, for anything -

She pulls back and looks down at him with sparkling eyes. She looks dark and luminous, skin flushed with the heat and pleasure he knows she's sharing, her hair falling around her face and that smile - god, he loves that smile…

She changes back to another rhythm, faster again, and he gasps and groans again, loud and wanton. His heart is pounding so hard it's going to burst out of his chest and he's so hard and sensitive it _hurts_ , a delicious, helpless ache that gets worse with every slick slide of Deanna's hand - and that's not even _half_ of what she's doing to him, with that intimate pressure right inside the very primal depths of his mind, stoking every burning coal of pleasure with a heat so pure, so bright and incredible he can hardly stand it.

" _Please,_ " he manages to get out, and it's actually a sob in between whimpers of desperation. Deanna slides her free hand into his hair and strokes her thumb against his temple.

"Please what?"

He tries to breathe, to remember. He has to ask properly, that was the deal, that's always the deal, but _fuck_ , it's so - "Please - _please,_ let me…"

Deanna smiles, still stroking his hair. "Nearly," and there's a gentle amusement but urging, too, in her voice and in the way she's stroking his mind just as hard and relentless as her hand around his cock.

He shudders, helpless, not sure he can make his voice work. _Please, please, I need to-_

Deanna breaks that almost coherent thought with another kiss, brushed across his lips. "Out loud," she murmurs, and he sobs again, aching with it and suddenly afraid he actually _can't_ say it, can't focus enough for the words -

_Of course you can._ "Come on, imzadi." Deanna smiles, still working his cock like she's urging him on with her hand as much as her voice. "You can say it, come on," and her palm closes over the head of him, swollen and aching and she tugs and twists and god, he can't take it, he actually can't take it -

"Oh god, stop, please stop…"

"Oh, no," Deanna's voice is a soft laugh, and she touches another taut string of pleasure inside his head and tears well in his eyes. "Definitely not, imzadi, that's not what you want at all."

He shakes his head sharply. "No, god, no - _fuck_ , please, let me come, please let me come-"

"But you wanted me to stop," she says, playful, and he sobs all over again.

"No, _no no no_ don't stop, please let me come, imzadi, can I come - _please_ can I come -"

Oh, she's so _proud_ of him - for letting go so completely, for taking so much - and that's the last coherent thing in his head before Deanna gently lifts her hold on that secret place in his mind and he comes so hard he actually screams.

 

*


	5. Body Swap

They've only done this deliberately every so often, because while it's so incredibly intimate and almost the most beautiful thing, it's not exactly easy and they've never not overslept still tangled together the morning after, even with Deanna's impressive mental discipline and years of Starfleet training.

But they're still meandering through friendly space, and they've got a whole twenty-four hours until they have to go on shift again, so it seems like the perfect time to indulge themselves - and she can't resist the way Will looks at her, the want and love in him as she climbs into bed beside him in the almost-dark…

He smiles and reaches up to brush her hair back behind her shoulder. His arms come around her and draw her in close, and his hand is gentle in her hair, cradling the back of her head as he presses his forehead to hers.

_Imzadi._

She smiles back, reaching for his mind; Will wraps one leg over both of hers, tugging her in as close as he can and she nestles into him, rests her palm on his neck, his pulse beating against the heel of her hand and her fingertips in his hair. She closes her eyes and there's just all of Will's warm, naked skin against all of hers and this feeling that's as natural as breathing after all these years, of their thoughts tangling together and the rest of the ship, the galaxy, everything falling away.

It's easy to sink into Will's mind - that deep, dark red-bronze place that's just an extension of herself, warm and strong and tasting maple-sweet to her empathy, and full of trust and love so unshakable it makes her heart ache. His breathing slows into time with hers, relaxation washing over him - and then they slip into the right rhythm and it's like a never-ending loop, every gentle touch and stroke and press of her mind relaxing him a little more, letting her press even deeper…

This time his smile is inside her, too, gentle and loving, full of the incredible sensation of being _together_ and yet so close even that word isn't enough - so close that there aren't words enough to describe how it really feels to have her inside him like this.

She could make him do anything, at this moment. She's so deep in his mind, so tangled with every part of him that he breathes, a long deep breath, and she can feel it in her own chest; can feel her own skin under his hands, the softness of her hair tangled around his fingers, the warm whisper of her breath on his lips. If she opened her eyes, in this moment, she isn't sure if she'd see blue eyes or black looking back at her.

And yet the most beautiful part of it is feeling Will everywhere inside her, too, because sinking into his mind like this, with every barrier relaxed - it's not like reaching into any other mind, keeping herself whole as she dives down. In this her mind is fluid, too, just as trusting and just as open; every push only pulls him deep into her in return, until it's exactly like _this_ , their minds interlocking so perfectly and so completely they can't tell where they should come apart. It's a melding so complete that they're _one_ , that their souls touch, just for a perfect moment in time - and in that moment there's only the feeling of this, so bright and pure and profound it hurts, and a thought like a chanted prayer; _imzadi._

 

*


	6. Bondage / Telepathic/Empathic Bonds

Will covers her hands with one of his and squeezes gently, leaning down to give her a kiss that starts soft and turns playful, lingers and ends with her laughing quietly into his mouth. He pulls back and she deliberately tries to follow just because she can't, just to feel the pressure of the wide leather cuffs trapping her wrists above her head.

"Mmm…" Will grins, brushing his lips against hers again, just barely. There's a hint of stubble grown back and it's just ever so slightly rough against her skin, a perfect accompaniment to being tied helpless to his bed. "Comfortable?"

She tugs again on the restraints; they're tight enough that she can't do more than that, but she can flex her fingers easily and the leather is well-worn enough to be soft against her skin. Will's hand is still on hers, so she squeezes back in answer. "I think so."

"Good." His eyes sparkle with that grin. "You're gonna be there for a while," and he strokes his hands down her body, gentle but firm: fingers brushing down her arms, palms stroking the curve of her breasts and over her ribs, her hips, the outside of her thighs before leaving a shiver behind as they leave her skin.

Then he picks up the PADD from beside the bed and settles down on his side, propping his head up on one hand with the PADD lying on the bed between them.

Deanna turns her head, resting her cheek against the inside of her arm, and just watches him for a moment: his bare chest, breathing calmly as if he doesn't have her bound naked beside him; his fingertips, light on the screen instead of her skin; the playful little smile on his lips even though he's not even looking at her.

 _I don't have to look at you to know how beautiful you are._ He doesn't look up, but the warmth in his voice inside her head is enough to send another pleasant shiver through her. _I should have thought of this before, you know. I could just keep you here like this, waiting for whenever I want you._

Her heart speeds up, just a little, and she lets it, relaxing into the climbing arousal that's only mostly her own. It makes it easy that it's such an attractive idea - lying here like this for _hours_ , naked and bound in Will's bed without him, only knowing the whole time that he's up on the bridge thinking of her…

_How long do you think, before you'd come just from my thinking about you?_

She swallows hard. _Oh, not nearly as long as you'd think._ Even just having him think about her now - and he is, so clearly, about what he might do to her before he lets her go - even that is making her skin flush with heat and her pulse throb between her thighs. _You know what your mind does to me,_ and Will smiles, tender and pleased.

 _Shall we see how long it takes now?_ He flicks a finger down the screen, scrolling through whatever's in front of his eyes. It doesn't really matter; she's obviously what's behind them. _You do look beautiful. All that sun and mountaineering agreed with you._

She smiles, stroking a caress through his mind. _Thank you,_ and she's only barely thought it before Will reaches out one hand, still without even looking, and brushes his fingertips across her nipple.

"Mmm..." She arches toward him, biting her lip, and Will chuckles and glances up with a dark, mischievous glint in his eyes as he pulls his hand back. She watches him, just watching her body - the way her breath hitches and her nipple tightens instantly from just that brief, teasing touch - and _gods_ , it's incredible how just Will Riker looking at her can make her feel, even after fifteen years.

Will tabs the screen off and shoves the PADD down the bed toward his feet, rolling onto his stomach beside her with that same mischief in his smile. He tugs a pillow under his head and settles himself comfortably close, and then he closes his eyes and it's that, the sight of him lying there so close and so relaxed, that's what makes her ache to be able to move, to touch him…

 _You need to come first,_ he thinks, simple and easy, because of course he knows how she feels. _Think you can do that without me touching you again?_

She _wants_ his hands on her, so much already but it's almost enough, if she can just - _please, just a little more?_

Will opens his eyes and smiles at her, reaching out to cup his palm against her cheek and brush his thumb across her lips. _I love you,_ he thinks, and then his hand strokes smoothly down her neck and over the rise of her collarbone, moving down to cup her breast. _And you ask so nicely,_ gently tugging her other nipple between his fingertips. It's like a reward, and she can't help treat it like one, arching into his touch again.

 _Mmm, that's so good,_ and Will squeezes her breast gently, flicking her nipple with his thumb; _please, Will, help me come,_ and he laughs happily under his breath, a quiet rumble in his chest, and slides his hand down her stomach. His fingers nudge between her thighs and she opens them eagerly, and then -

 _Ohhh…_ She hasn't realised how wet she already is until Will's fingers slide so easily inside her, his thumb finding her clit, and her hips arch off the bed into his hand at just that. _Oh yes, that, please,_ as he starts to move his hand, slow firm circles on her clit and his fingers scissored just enough that he's opening her completely with each thrust. _Don't stop, please don't stop now -_

 _Shh,_ and even silent it's not as much a sound as the feeling of reassurance, gently pushing her back into that tide of pleasure, just as eager for it to take her over.

He adds a third finger and she gasps, rocking her hips with the rhythm of his hand, and then he curls his fingers inside her and she can't keep from crying out, it feels _so_ good - "Oh, gods, Will, yes, please oh, _oh oh oh-_ "

His grin is bright and hot and feral in her mind, and even with her eyes shut so tightly she knows the kiss is coming before it does. That's all it takes to send her over the edge, gasping into his mouth as the pleasure breaks her apart and Will buries his other hand in her hair, kissing her through it, deep and slow and hungry. _Mmm, that's it, imzadi, come for me, come on, just like that,_ and she's coming hard enough already but he just keeps going until it hits her all over again, and again until her thighs are clamped desperately around his hand and she's shaking, whimpering, writhing breathless and helpless on his fingers. 

When he finally stops, she's trembling, her wrists hurt even though she doesn't even remember pulling against the cuffs and she feels so broken open it's like she's outside her skin.

_Oh my god, please do that again._

Will grins at her and slides down the bed.

*****


	7. Worship

"Soooo…"

Deanna curls her feet up onto the chair and cradles her hot chocolate carefully in both hands. "So?"

Beverly rolls her eyes. "So, you've been insufferably smug for a week now, and I'll bet I know why. I've had enough. Tell me _everything_."

Deanna laughs. "And I suppose, if I pretend not to know what you mean-"

Beverly glares at her. "I have medical implements and I'm not afraid to use them."

She laughs again and takes a sip of chocolate. It's sweet and thick on her tongue. "Well then, yes, Will and I have been taking Artim's advice, and it's working out very well for both of us so far."

Beverly's eyebrows shoot up. " _Every_ _day?!_ "

She grins, wicked. "Why, Beverly, I think you’re jealous."

Beverly rolls her eyes with a dry smile. "I wonder how you could tell that."

"I don't think I'd need empathy," she says, still grinning.

Beverly narrows her eyes. "You're not going into Phase, are you? Because as your doctor, you should tell me if you are."

"And you'd need every detail?" Beverly shrugs, grinning back at her, and doesn't deny it; Deanna laughs, shaking her head. "No, that's for when I get older, not younger." She takes another long swallow of chocolate, trying to frame the words right. "We’re just... I don’t know how to describe it. Ready, I suppose."

Curiosity, is foremost in Beverly's mind. "Ready for...?"

She thinks about how to say it. How to put into words the moment, so simple and open and unseen by everyone around them, when Will so very deliberately reached for her hand and when she looked up into his eyes, she knew he'd made the choice that's taken them fifteen years to make. That he wanted everything - was offering, everything - that they can be, together, without fear or reservation. That he knew she was as ready to choose this as he was.

"Us," she says, simply, because that's all she has to explain it… and because it's what trips off her tongue as the door slides open across the room to admit Will and the Captain, both relaxed enough to be finished with their shift, and Will's mind immediately fixes on her, just the same as the gaze that she can feel without turning around.

It's not an answer that really answers anything without empathy to provide the depth it needs - and Beverly might be about to say as much, but then she looks behind Deanna's back and something like shock ricochets through the surface of her mind.

She smiles mischievously. _Hi._ "Beverly?"

 _Hi,_ Will thinks, filling it with a very intimate mental caress. _Mind if we join you?_

 _I think I'll insist on it,_ she thinks, playful but giving it just the slightest edge of true insistence, and the flicker of dark heat somewhere deep in Will's mind is beautiful to feel.  

"The way he’s looking at you," Beverly says, and there's actual awe in her voice.

She must sound exactly as smug as Beverly says, but she can't and won't hide it. "Will's always looked at me like that." After all, he's always loved her the way he needs to, fierce and tender and trusting, with that edge of submission he needs and that makes a matriarchal Betazoid woman the perfect match for him. "He's just never let you see it before." And she won't deny, either, that it's heady and thrilling to have that - Will looking at her with open worship in his eyes and in his thoughts, the way he always has when they're alone, but this time for everyone to see. It isn't even that he doesn't care if anyone sees - he _wants_ it visible, to have everyone know that he belongs to her and always has…

 

"I trust this new development between the two of you won't interfere with your duties," Picard says, and Will tears his eyes away from Deanna to look at him.

"No, sir. It never has before," but he makes sure it comes out reassuring instead of defensive. Still, he can't help a smile. "I’d do anything Deanna asked of me. That's been true long before we ever served together." He lifts an eyebrow, her slightly mischievous frame of mind leaking over into his. "You do trust Deanna, don’t you?"

Picard takes his drink as it's handed across the bar. "Implicitly, of course."

He nods a thank you to Ben and accepts his own glass. "It’s not really all that different. She wouldn’t ask me to do anything she doesn’t know I want." He grins, wolfish. "Even if I don't know I want it."

"That's a lot of power for one person to have over another," Picard says, in a tone that Will isn't sure means he's awed or uneasy.

 _Both,_ Deanna thinks, as they walk over to where she's curled comfortably in a chair with a blushing Beverly staring at her. Her eyes meet his and he would forget to care how the Captain feels, except that it's a great deal of fun to share the deep amusement and undeniably erotic charge from having other people - people they've apparently fooled for a very long time, at least on some level - hear and see how much power Deanna has over him… How much he would love, if she would just ask it of him, to just sink to his knees right here and have her fingers in his hair like a benediction, sit like that and hold nothing else in his head but the reverence and love he has for her…

Instead he leans over and kisses her, brushing his fingers against her cheek and letting them linger, just the way his mouth lingers on hers. Deanna hums happily and does thread her fingers into his hair, tugs just a little to break the kiss but holds his head down so that she can whisper against his lips, just loud enough for Beverly and the Captain to hear; "You can kneel for me later, if you're very good."

Beverly chokes on her drink, with a spluttering cough, over the Captain clearing his throat like there's a whole gagh trying to get loose. Through the hot threads of Deanna's mind pressing into his, he can feel the shock/curiosity/confusion/amazement all buzzing around them, and he grins.

"Promise?"

Deanna smiles as she lets him go, a beautiful open smile of desire that's more than answer enough. "I know you want to," she says, confident and playful, her gaze sliding to Picard with such a wicked glint in her eyes that he can't help laughing as he pulls up a chair beside her.

She's never had to mark him as hers; that's not how this works. The true, honest glory of it has always been that he _wants_ to give himself to her, and they're finally at a place where they can get it right - he's ready to give everything and she's ready to accept it. It will probably blind them both with how incredible it is, but that only makes them both want it more.

"Always do," he says, easily, because it's true.

 

*


	8. Facesitting

As much as he enjoyed the whole experience, it's nice to have his face covered again. His skin still tingles a little from the stimulated regrowth and right now, too, from the way Deanna is running her fingertips absently over his face and down his chin. She's stretched out along his side on the couch, her head settled on his shoulder and one leg curled over his hip. He smiles under her fingers and runs his own lightly down her spine.

"Are you sure...?"

She kisses his chest. "I was just fine with you growing it the first time, if you remember," and there's an image under the words that makes him grin and dip his head to kiss her fingers. They're passing through another densely clouded region of space, and the view outside the window above them is swirled with faint purples and blues against the usual sparkling black. It reminds him of Deanna, those same colors that are always on the other side of that warm, golden net of feeling that joins her mind to his.

_You're so sweet, imzadi._

He chuckles, dipping back into that image. "Not as sweet as you," and Deanna laughs impishly, trailing her fingers down to his neck as she sits up enough to steal a kiss.

"Mmm…" He smiles up at her, tucking her hair behind her ear. "No yuck this time, then?"

Deanna rubs her thumb along the line of his newly bearded jaw, her smile impish too. "No, I don't think so."

He arches his eyebrows, picking up her playful frame of mind. "You don't think so?"

There's a hopeful glint in her eyes. "Well..."

He grins and slides his hands to her hips, pulling her on top of him. " _Well,_ maybe you need a little more convincing?"

Deanna smiles again; "Really, you don't have to," but she's moving with his hands, definitely not reluctant at all, and there's a frisson of desire already leaking into his head.

"Oh, no." He runs his hands down her thighs and back up, firm enough to push the pale pink Betazoid silk of her nightgown up around her hips. "No, if I need to work harder to convince you, that's what we're going to do," and he puts his hands behind her thighs and pulls her forward, still unresisting, sliding himself down the couch too until her knees are either side of his head.

He could just get lost in the sensory experience of this: the hot, musky-sweet scent of her, her whole weight on his shoulders and the sight of her on top of him, the look on her face and the electric anticipation in her mind. He wraps both arms around her thighs, spreads his hands broad over the front of her hips and pulls her down onto his mouth, and Deanna lets out a soft, laughed moan.

"Mmmm _…_ " She's already so warm, and slightly wet, and then he rubs his face against her and the sound she makes is definitely more moan than laughter, liquid heat blossoming against his open mouth. "Oh, _mmm…_ "

The taste of her is as thoroughly intoxicating as ever; he pushes his tongue into her, eager for more of that, and Deanna gives a soft cry and tips her head back, grinding her hips down onto his face.

He sends a feral grin into her mind. _I feel like I might be convincing you,_ as he licks long and hard with the flat of his tongue to get her wet everywhere, tilting his chin up to rub his beard against her.

Deanna laughs, already slightly unsteady. "Mmm, well, you've always been - oh, yes, right there -" as he curls the tip of his tongue under her clit - "quite, mm, _convincing_ …"

He grins brighter, sucks her clit and inner lips into his mouth, and Deanna gasps and slides her fingers into his hair. Her thighs clench around his head; he shakes it, playfully, grazing soft newly grown hair against her most sensitive skin, and Deanna shudders and tightens her grip, trying to pull his mouth closer. "Oh…" _ohhh -_

 _You taste so good,_ he thinks, breathless almost more from how overwhelming it is to take her apart like this, than from the fact that she's holding his face against her and too desperate for more to let him go. He sucks harder, swirling his tongue around her clit, still deliberately rubbing his chin against her; Deanna whimpers and rocks her hips.

"Mmm, please, keep doing that -" and he does, until her clit is so hard and tight and he can almost feel it throbbing and then he bites, gently, just enough for her to feel it.

Deanna pulls at his hair and swears in her native tongue, a long, liquid sound that's more feeling than coherent words, full of _need_ and _yes_ and _harder_.

He's never been one to deny her, so he does - little soft bites and swirls of his tongue until she's shaking and his scalp hurts and then he presses the tip of his tongue right there, _hard_ , that spot where it's almost too sensitive when she's this close and Deanna grabs for his hands, desperate, "oh my god _Will_ -"

His name is almost a soft scream as she comes, a wet rush into his mouth that makes him moan right along with her, lapping it eagerly with his tongue and trying to hold her down, to taste all of it, even as she bucks and shudders and tries to make him stop. _Gods, stop, please, it’s too much, please…_ "Will, stop, stop," and finally it gets through to his dazed mind and he does, dropping his head back to pant for breath and open his eyes.

Deanna trembles above him, slowly sitting back onto his chest; her fingers are between his, her breath coming in short gasps, her eyes closed until he nudges gently at her mind, wordless but giddy, and she opens them to look down at him. Her smile is blissful and he grins, fully aware that while she looks luminous and sated, he probably looks a wet mess and he really couldn’t care.

He looks up into her eyes. _Was that convincing enough for you?_

Deanna laughs and strokes his hair back from his forehead with a shaking hand. "I never could resist you.”

He strokes her thigh in return, and grins even more at the way her muscles quiver at the touch. Deanna whimpers again and leans heavily against the back of the couch; he lifts her leg just enough to slip out from under her and sit up, pulling her into his arms.

"I could do that for days," he murmurs, still grinning. He's not sure he can stop.

"I could let you," she murmurs back, smiling, trailing her fingers over his wet, mussed beard, and kisses him.

 

*


	9. Lingerie

Just because they're stuck ambling home, doesn't mean there isn't still work to be done: if anything, it's finally allowing the First Officer and Ship's Counselor, like a lot of the crew, to catch up on that inevitable pile of work that's been waiting for months, never quite urgent enough to be done until they suddenly have two weeks left to kill.

But just because they have a mountain of work to catch up on, doesn't mean they can't be comfortable while they're doing it.

Deanna's always kept her quarters a degree or two above ship standard temperature - not as warm as Medara used to be, except in winter, but enough that she can relax without the thermally regulated fabric of a uniform, or any clothes at all if she feels like it. Tonight he got in first and turned the controls up another few degrees, stripping down to a pair of loose pants and a thin tunic of his own, so that the welcoming warmth and the sight of him stretched out on her couch met her when she walked in.

The smile on her face and the tender, very affectionate caress that washes through his mind makes it more than worth it.

"Hi." She crosses to him and he holds out a hand and she takes it, letting him pull her in for a kiss. "Mmm…" Her other hand plays through his hair, in imitation of that mental caress. "To what do I owe this particular treat?"

"Nothing special." He steals another kiss. "There's dinner programmed in, if you're hungry?"

There's a moment, and he can feel her realising… this is how it’s going to be, now. Not that they haven't basically shared two sets of quarters for years: slept in each other's beds, made each other dinner, cleaned up each other's mess, watered each other's plants and a hundred other ridiculously domestic things, but…

Like everything else, it's the same but it's different, too, in such a good way.

Deanna stills her hand in his hair, presses her lips to his forehead, and her touch in his mind is bright like sunlight. _I love you so very much, Will Riker._

He can't help teasing. _Wait until you see the paperwork for dessert._

Deanna laughs. _I knew there'd be something._

 

 _You're not thinking about Addislow's research proposal,_ Deanna chides gently, amused, without looking up from her PADD.

Will grins. _Guilty as charged._ He's honestly never not found Deanna attractive in anything she wears or doesn't, but he'll admit to a certain appreciation for seeing her like this - in soft purple figure-hugging silk over bare skin, just enough to be what in Human terms would be called modest, and in Betazoid is nothing short of intentionally suggestive. When nakedness is considered par for the course, even the choice of a simple nightdress takes on an extra level of eroticism, and this one is new. It's full length, Betazoid silk like all her favorites; the color fades from bright royal purple up to a pale lavender, slit up to her thigh on one side and cut asymmetrically to leave the opposite shoulder bare. The cut of the silk hugs her breasts, falls low at the back and is comfortably loose around her feet where they're tucked up beside her; it looks like she's been draped in a Betazoid sunset.

She sat across from him wearing it while they shared warm oskoid salad and iced sweet tea, and he tangled his fingers playfully with hers just like they are now, seated at opposite ends of her couch with only that touch between them as they work. He was as captivated by the sight of her then as he still is now, hours later, and it's not only pointless but rude to deny it.

Deanna smiles and puts her PADD down on the couch between them, then reaches over and takes his out of his hands.

“Come to bed,” she says, and pulls him up from the couch.

He smiles back and lets her: pull him to his feet, lead him through into her bedroom, slip her hands under his tunic to ride the fabric up until he gets the idea and strips it the rest of the way over his head. Deanna wraps her arms around him and presses a kiss over his heart, hugging him tightly for a moment before she folds her arms around herself, reaching for the silk at her hips.

"Don't," he says, quiet, and she stops and looks up at him, something not just amused but almost surprised in her smile.

"Oh?"

He strokes his hand down her side, over the soft silk. "You're so beautiful," he murmurs. It comes out rough and soft at once, and still with all the emotion he can give it, it's not enough. He takes her hand, presses her palm high up against his cheek and her fingertips to his temple. "Look," and he watches her eyes as she slips into his thoughts.

It's not as if Deanna can't always tell how he feels about her, of course. Even if his feelings didn't constantly pulse through the intricate web of their tangled minds, she's the most talented empath he's ever heard of, and he's not nearly as complicated as to be able to confuse her - but it's still different when he opens it up for her, lays it all out like a hand of cards and shows her…

Deanna's breath catches, very softly, and there are suddenly tears in her eyes as much as there's a smile on her lips.

_Oh, Will._

He strokes his palm over the curve of her hip, into the small of her back, pulling her back in close and tilting his head down to kiss her. "Get into bed," he whispers, a little playful but mostly needing. Deanna flashes him that amused little smile again and stretches up to steal another soft kiss, then crawls under the sheets with her back to him.

He kicks his pyjama pants off to a corner to meet his tunic and slides in behind her. The sheets are cool on his naked skin but Deanna is warm, like summer, and he curls around her, burrowing a hand under her waist to wrap himself around her. She's all soft, body-warmed silk under his hands, his legs, and the bare skin of her back against his chest as she nestles back into his arms.

"Mmm…" Deanna wraps her hand lightly around his forearm, a gentle tug, and he tightens his embrace until she lets out a soft, happy sigh. "Do you know I still remember the first time you held me?"

He smiles a kiss into her bare shoulder. "Mmm. I remember." He does, clearly - that there was moonlight and stars and the soft lapping of the water nearby, and the grass was soft but Deanna's skin was even softer as she trembled against his back, and then he rolled over and wrapped her in his arms and it felt…

"I still do, you know."

Her voice is soft, already sleepy. He nuzzles her hair, breathing in the scent of her. "Mmm?"

"Love at first sight." Deanna rubs her thumb softly against his skin. "I still believe in it."

He lets his eyes close, still smiling, stroking her stomach through the silk. "Me too."

 

*****


	10. Edgeplay / Fucking Machine

The room around them is lit with the colors of dusk through a wall of windows, the hot Veldonna star setting over a view he hasn't seen in reality for years. Medara rolls out toward the horizon, green and vibrant: the tall, elegant buildings of the University; the sprawling miles of the West Gardens; the Starfleet campus off in the distance, almost out of sight even from this high up. The room itself is just as they both remember it - richly decorated in soft, smooth fabrics with a floor of polished wood, dark brown with hints of deep purple in the grain. It's arrayed with long, wide sloping couches and deep chairs, all specifically designed for the purpose to which the computer-generated partygoers around them are already putting them with quiet, very sensual intent.

The air is warm and faintly humid, with leftover summer sun and the heat generated by a dozen naked bodies, and yet there's sweat beading on his skin for an entirely different reason.

Deanna smiles at him, beatific, with sensual desire hot in his head and shining in her eyes as she watches him - stretched out and stretched wide on a low, red leather couch as the holographic blond Betazoid kneeling between his spread thighs, with that easy holographic smile and particularly thick holographic cock, thrusts into him again. His knees are bent, bound to the couch at the ankles and across the width of his hips to keep him still, but she's let him keep his hands free and the deliberately positioned bar above his head - that same brown-purple wood, polished smooth - is slick with his own sweat under his white-knuckled fingers.

Another thrust that hits _right there_ and he groans, unable to move away or move with it, tightening his grip on Deanna's mind as his eyes fall closed. "Mmmm, oh god, yeah…"

Deanna gives him a look that's as full of love as it is pure sensuality, one he can feel inside his head. He grins, slightly strained already, reaching out a hand: she slides her fingers between his, intimate and confident, just like the tendrils of want and anticipation pulsing hot and metallic through his mind.

"Come here," he gets out, rough and needy. "Imzadi…"

Her touch in his mind is tender, but just on the side of firm that sends a thrill through him. Deanna rubs her hand over his bare chest, and then her mouth is on his and her other hand is behind his head, lifting him to meet her kiss and her thumb grazing the nape of his neck until he shivers. She smiles, still kissing him, and moves her fingers into his hair, gently but just firmly enough to pull his head back and let her whisper into his mouth;

"Are you ready?"

He forces his eyes open to look at her, wanting to see that smile in her voice, gentle but more than a little commanding. She wants him to be and _fuck,_ he is, he's so ready…

He doesn't have to tell her in words: there's only a moment and then she's on top of him, straddling his hips and sliding down onto him - so wet and hot and god, she's so ready for this, too, with a low, happy sound as they come together as easily as they always do and her hips press flush to his.

He reaches up and pulls her head down into another kiss, open and hungry; Deanna laughs playfully in his head and starts to move, in rhythm with the cock still fucking into him so slow and steady, sending hot sparks of pleasure up his spine. He can _feel_ her, in his head, pressing down, tasting the depth of that pleasure; can taste the smile on her lips in return, even without opening his eyes even when she pulls back or at the sound of her voice.

"You know he won't stop," she murmurs in his ear, soft and so darkly erotic it sends a raw shudder through him. "Not even if you beg, or scream, you know that, don't you?"

He can hardly breathe. " _Yes_."

Deanna scratches her fingernails gently at the base of his neck. "No matter how many times you come," and he shudders again, "or how much it hurts," her nails digging in, just enough, "he won't stop until I say so. Until _I_ say," and she presses down into his mind, right into where those sparks of pleasure start. He arches against the restraint across his hips, desperate.

 _Please,_ he thinks, because it's all that's coherent in his head. He's hers, entirely, and he wants it that way.

Deanna softens her touch, cradling the back of his neck, and gives him that soft and loving smile.

"Computer, disengage safety protocols in holodeck eight. Authorisation Troi, two-three-zero-zero-alpha."

His breath instantly comes harder, helpless anticipation burning in him, even under the series of quiet bleeps. " _*Safety protocols disengaged. Caution is advised.*_ "

Deanna laughs, already near breathless too, and he chuckles with her, even if it comes out as a choked moan because _fuck,_ it's instantly different, faster and more intense, and all he can think is how good it feels and how it's _going_ to feel, and how patient Deanna can be even if he's broken open and begging for it to stop…

There are some very clear perks to being on the senior command staff of the ship, though he's fairly certain that no one else on the command staff uses theirs quite like this.

He should recommend it, really.

 

*


	11. Sadism/Masochism (Bruiseplay)

Will spends most of his bridge shift idly patrolling between stations, discussing repairs and readings with the crew with his usual easy manner and warm smile. Deanna sits in her chair working and keeps her own smile mostly inside, soft and private between them because she's the only one who knows he's really not eager to sit down. 

His uniform is as comfortable as any fabric is going to be on bruised, red, abraded skin, but every so often a pale burn of pleasurable pain will flare up in his mind as he moves, and she'll bite her lip not to let that smile show on her face. She doesn't have to look at him to be able to picture what hurts: the scratches on his shoulders; the tight ache of abused muscles in his thighs; the bruises wrapped around his ankles and wrists, finger-shaped on his arms, wide and raw-edged across his hips and low on his belly; and that's all without how sore he is inside, or how much his cock still aches from what she put him through last night. 

The scientist in her is observing the situation with the utmost care, and is almost one hundred percent confident that no one else can tell: Will's always been particularly good at hiding discomfort of any kind, sometimes even from her.  

Another quick, raw heat rubs against her senses, like briefly passing a flame across her skin, and she allows herself a smile just for a moment. Not that he  _wants_  to hide this from her - it's hers as much as his, this secret little afterglow, and his mind is deliberately open enough to let her share in every sensation. 

When he crosses close enough to her chair, she reaches out and catches him - by the wrist, right where she had to tie him down when he just couldn't take any more, and it's like stoking a candle flame the way the pain heats up inside his head, warm and delicious. Temptation gets the better of her just for a moment: she tightens her grip, only barely not enough to be noticed if anyone looks, daring him. 

To his credit he doesn't even twitch, although the feeling he gives her makes it very clear he wants to react - pull away or ask for more, or both - he just knows he shouldn't. 

 _Because you're on duty?_ She can't resist asking the question, even though they both know the answer: she just wants to have him say it. 

Will meets her eyes, easily.  _Because you haven't said I can._  

She smiles up at him.  _I love you._  "Want to get some lunch in a little while?" 

He smiles back. "Sounds great." 

 

They cross paths with Geordi and Data, coming out of Ten Forward just as they arrive; Will's been relaxed all morning, so she can feel how it throws him for a moment when Data asks, "Are you injured, Commander?" 

He blinks, but Data’s expression is, of course, just innocently curious. "You appear to be favoring your right leg by approximately one point five nanoseconds per stride when compared to your usual gait." 

Will smiles gamely, his voice deliberately bright. "Pulled a muscle exercising, that's all. I'll live." 

She tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow. "I’ll take good care of him, Data," she says, flashes a teasing smile that has Geordi grinning, then laughing behind them. She can hear him start to try and explain the innuendo as they walk away, Will covering her hand with his. 

He still looks calm, but there's a faint feeling of something she doesn't want there, in his mind, like a pebble out of place in a smooth sandy beach. She reaches for it... and gently tightens her grip on his arm, into the bruises shaped to fit her fingers, holding him still. 

"That would hardly be fair of me," she murmurs, in a low voice. "It's Data. I’m sure Geordi could see just as easily. Bruises  _are_  warmer than normal tissue," and Will's eyes go dark at the words, at the feeling, even as he smiles - grateful, relieved - and leans down, that nascent tension unravelling back into nothing as he kisses her with that same smile still on his lips. 

They find a quiet seat in the window, stars streaking by; she's hardly settled before Will puts his arm around her waist and draws her close, tucking her up against his side. She smiles and leans comfortably into him, giving his mind a gentle caress and stretching up to kiss his cheek. 

"You're so affectionate after I've made you hurt," she murmurs playfully in his ear. Will laughs - low and relaxed again, with a faint echo of the stunning way he sounded while she did exactly that. She can feel the memory still bright in his head and touches it, gently, like playing the strings of a violin and feeling music in the way he shivers and holds onto her tighter. He's always been like this after something so intense, and it's just as satisfying as the scene itself; the way he needs to have her almost as physically close as she is mentally, like his body needs to know she's still there, still a part of him. 

Of course it stretches out the pleasure, too, especially when she puts her hand discreetly under the table and presses her fingers to the inside of his thigh - high enough that for just a moment, she can tell, he thinks she might move it even higher, and the beauty of telepathy lets her hear  _god I want that_ _right here_ and  _please_ _no,_ _it still hurts,_ _I can’t_ and know he means both, entirely. 

Even more beautifully, it lets her know that he’ll still let her choose which voice to listen to, and it reminds her sharply how she's never felt more honored by anyone than this, knowing this incredible man is so utterly hers.  

She brushes her thumb against his thigh, keeping her hand still, gently reassuring.  _Relax,_ she thinks, making the word warm and heavy with every nuance of calm and safety and promise.  

Will kisses her hair, squeezing her gently, and the  _thank you_ he gives her is just as full of emotion.  

She smiles and pats his thigh. "Eat your lunch." 

 

* 


	12. Hand Jobs / Master/Slave

He wakes up to the press of Deanna's fingertips into one of the deeper bruises on his outstretched arm, of her smiling lips to his and her warm, naked body against his side.

"Mmmm..." He opens his mouth under hers, not quite awake but willing to just let her take him if that's what she wants. _'Morning._

Deanna nuzzles playfully into his mental touch. "Good morning," and her voice is quiet and happy, her lips still brushing his as she says it. "I almost didn't wake you," she says, warm and affectionate, running her fingers through his hair. "You looked peaceful. It's nice to see."

He smiles, sleepily still. "Mmm. All your fault." And it really is – no one can get him relaxed the way Deanna can, because it can take more than many people would be able to give or take to get him there, because the only person he really trusts that far is her.

Because he's given himself to her, all of himself and more than willingly. No one else ever gets to have that part of him, and just that thought is enough to lay a deep calm over him, like curling up in a warm blanket.

Deanna kisses him again, soft and tender; he's awake enough to know she can hear him thinking, and to feel how she's just as happy and just as awed at having this, all of this, as he is.

"Mm." She smiles down into his eyes. "I woke you because Beverly called and suggested breakfast. Do you want me to meet her in your quarters instead?"

He appreciates the offer she's giving him, but he flashes her a sudden, bright grin and threads his own fingers into her hair and rolls over, trapping her beneath him, his morning erection brushing her stomach.

 _No._ He thinks it to get the full force of meaning behind that simple word. "I’m proud to be yours." He runs his fingers down her cheek, brushes fingertips over her lips. "I don't care who knows that. Show it off if you want to," because he knows that sparkling heat in her mind well enough to know she wants to do exactly that.

It hits him: he’s finally done with having people see their relationship in such Human terms, and Deanna is finally comfortable enough in herself, among so many Humans, to be truly Betazoid about it. Maybe this is what took them so long, though now that it’s here he can't imagine why.

Deanna smiles. _I love you, Will,_ and pulls his head down and kisses him. It's sweet and powerful, calling to that deep, primal part of him that wants to drop to his knees whenever she walks into the room; he’s half-breathless when she pulls his head back, her gaze full of love and delight.

He shifts a little and her smile turns wicked; she runs her fingertips down the center of his chest, just slow enough to let him realise, let him anticipate, where they're going.

"I told Beverly ten-hundred hours." He glances at the chronometer; twelve minutes and her hand wraps around him - _oh, god_ -

"Can you come for me in time, do you think?" 

He folds down onto his elbows over her, his forehead tipped against hers, eyes sliding closed. "I’ll try, I promise I’ll try," and pride fills his head like summer sunshine, Deanna’s free hand cupping the back of his neck to hold him down.

"I’ll let her in even if you're not done," she says, and he shudders at the thought, rocking into her hand. "I could show you off like this, the way you let me do this to you whenever I like, would you like that?"

"Mm, yeah," because he would, right now, he’d let her take him like this in front of anyone she wants. He has absolutely no doubt she means it, or that she knows exactly what it does to him to have her say the words as she starts those long, amazing strokes, and it's gentle but he’s still faintly sore from the last few days, and it's almost dry and _fuck,_ it's good but he’s not sure he can take it...

"Tell me what you want." She nudges his mind, gently. "You can ask," and he lets out a shuddered breath.

"Just… hurts a little," it catches in his throat and Deanna strokes the back of his neck, slowing her hand.

"Do you want it to?"

He’s shaking already. "Yeah, just - mm, oh, god..."

"You're not sure you can take it," not a question, just his thoughts out loud. "I think you can," softer, tender, coaxing. "You're so strong, imzadi, you can take it, just relax, let it hurt, let it feel good..."

He leans into her desperately: her hands and her body and her mind, holding him firm and safe, taking care of him even through the pain... teasing at the pleasure in his head like pinching at his skin, driving him higher until even though it’s rough and almost too much, she twists her palm around the head of his cock and it's wet, leaking, so close already...

"Mmm, that’s it, that's what I want." _Will,_ "look at me," and he obeys because he has to. "You're doing so well," she murmurs, proud and so turned on and the endorphins start to burst like fireworks in his head. _He_ made her sound like that, just him, and he wants to come just for her, just because it's what she wants, but he can’t quite -

"What do you need?" Deanna strokes his neck. "Tell me, it's okay," and it is, it's so incredible that it’s okay, he can ask for anything and she’ll do it.

"Don't know - _fuck_ , I just - please make it hurt," _please, something, I just_

 _Oh, you're so good, imzadi, you deserve this so much,_ and apparently her fingernails are what he needs, her thumb scratching lightly up and down the wet slit of his cock and tiny circles of her nails _right there_ , where she knows _exactly_ that it'll break him and he’s panting for breath, pain and pleasure all too mixed together to tell apart, begging without remembering what the words even mean.

"Stop, stop, please, god don't –" _I can’t, I can’t, please stop, imzadi, please_

"Shhhh. No," and if it were anyone else he'd wonder how she knows that just that, a quiet calm tone that tells him how helpless he is, is what will send him over the edge. But it's not; it's Deanna, torturing him so expertly, knowing what he wants even when he doesn’t know himself. It's Deanna holding him, one gentle hand still on the back of his neck and the strength of her mind cradling his as he pants and cries and comes all over her hand and stomach, _oh god oh god thank you so good thank you_ tripping over and over through his head.

It’s Deanna, who holds him gently in her hand until he stops shaking, then brushes her lips against his with a proud smile.

"Eight minutes to spare." She strokes his hair back from where it clings, sweat-damp, to his forehead. "Even time to shower."

He laughs, broken and drunk on feeling, boneless as his muscles give out and he lets his whole weight land on her, his cock pressing wet and spent and sore into the hollow of her hip.

"Give me another four minutes, first?"

Deanna wraps her arms and legs around him, pulling his head down into the curve of her neck. "Sure."

 

Beverly rings the chime approximately a minute after Deanna gets out of the shower and just as she tags Will, with a playful and slightly damp kiss, from where he's still sprawled on top of the sheets. He groans a half-serious protest to the nudge and the sound, reaching up to finger a wet curl of hair falling over her shoulder - she's kept her hair mostly straight for years now, but it always tries to rebel when she takes a real water shower - as he pushes himself upright.

He's a little unsteady, even if only she would be able to tell; she smiles, gently probing at his mind. "Are you sure you're okay to shower?"

"Mmm." He cups her face in his hand and kisses her in answer, and she laughs softly and moves back to let him up.

"I'll get you some coffee."

Will grabs her hand and kisses her knuckles. She squeezes his fingers and rests a light touch on the edge of his mind, just enough to keep a mental eye on him even when he's disappeared into the bathroom and she's pulling on a loose comfortable tunic over her leggings.

"Come in." The door slides open as she wanders into the living room, and she smiles as Beverly walks in. "Hi. I was just getting coffee, did you want some?"

"Hi," Beverly says, with a smile of her own. "Coffee sounds great. I brought pastries," and she puts a covered plate down on the table, lifting the lid with a flourish. "Did you turn the heat up in here?"

Deanna blinks, realising that she _hasn't_ realised. "I think Will did, a few days ago. We must have forgotten to change it again." 

_I thought about it. I like it closer to home._

She smiles and doesn't bother to hide it, even as she says, to Beverly, "I can turn it down, if you-"

"Oh, no, it's fine." Beverly smiles warmly back at her, taking a seat and tucking one foot up onto the chair, leaning over to take a fat, fruit-filled pastry. "Besides, they're your quarters." She watches as Deanna puts three steaming coffee mugs down on the table and pulls out a chair opposite. "Is Will joining us?"

"He's taking a shower. He didn't want to get up."

 _You mean you broke me._ There's a faint but delicious heat: the feeling of his own soaped fingers moving over bruises, still only starting to heal, and she can imagine in her mind's eye how he looks. She can feel him resisting the temptation to test each one, and gives that warm hold on his mind a gentle squeeze.

_You loved it._

The color of his mind deepens, dark and rich and happy. _I did,_ even as that heat turns hotter, sharper: his own hand, even wet and soapy and careful around his soft but still sore cock, and the hitched breath he doesn't hold in. _Mm. You're too good to me._

She blows him a mental kiss and reaches over for a pastry; it's warm, and it flakes between her fingers, faintly sticky and bursting with flavor when she takes a bite. "Mmmm. These are excellent, you need to send me the program," but Beverly's mind is sparkling with sudden amusement as she sits back, and she gives a look. "What?"

Beverly arches an eyebrow at her. "Somebody get a little over-exuberant?" Her eyes are dancing with that same amusement, her look playfully wicked.

"Hmm?" Deanna reaches up to touch where that look is resting. Her soft tunic is slipping down one shoulder and there's a sore spot, a little hot to the touch and the shape of Will's mouth, on the plane of her shoulder. She smiles behind her mug. "Oh, only a little," matching Beverly's wicked look.

She says it because it really is true, but also because she can feel the phantom chill of Will's wet skin leaving the bathroom, hear the memory of his voice - _I don't care who knows, I'm proud to be yours -_ and that same wicked mischief in his mind, picking up on hers.

And then he's in the bedroom doorway, with just a towel wrapped a little gingerly around his waist and an almost-smile on his lips.

"Morning." His voice is cheerful, that easy happiness laid bare, and Beverly turns and instantly chokes a little on her coffee. Deanna's known her long enough to know that she's seeing everything with a doctor's eye - the bands of sunset-purple skin around his wrists and ankles, peppering his arms; the dark grazed skin, rough as it heals, just above the line of the towel; the long, thin, red streaks of days-old scratches along his shoulders, the fresher ones on his chest -

"What the hell happened to you?"

He leans into her mind; Deanna pushes love, and pride, and mischief back to him, and that grin she's always loved breaks through.

"I bite. Deanna doesn't."

Beverly's head snaps round, her eyes wide and a gasp in her voice, shock bursting like sparks spitting from a fire. " _Deanna!_ "

She laughs, not because it's funny but because it's just…

 _Yeah,_ Will thinks, and there's that same inexplicable feeling in his eyes as they meets hers.  

 _You look beautiful, imzadi,_ she thinks, lets her gaze follow the line of his body with an entirely different eye to Beverly's. "I'm very careful, Beverly," she says lightly, deliberately projecting reassurance. "I don't make extra work for you, don't worry."

Will leans against the door frame, the twinkle in his eyes turning a little softer as he looks at her. "It's true, she's very good."

"Are you okay?" She loves Beverly for asking that, right in front of her - the doctor and the friend first, always. "It looks like…" Beverly clears her throat. "Well, like it hurt a bit. A lot?"

Will chuckles, "Yeah," and he says it out loud like a reflex because he's too relaxed not to, or to keep that rough pleasure from bleeding into his voice.

That's when she realises why he's still standing there - that he's too relaxed not to limp just a little either, or not to want to just _be_ , without thinking about what he's supposed to do when it's not just them.

"Will." She takes a gentle, steadying hold of his mind, filling her touch with reassurance - that it's okay, that Beverly is not someone who'll judge him, that she loves them both enough to figure it out, if they explain. _You're home. I want to see, and I know you want to let it show._ "Come here," she says it a little softer, holding out a hand. "And don't worry. Just ask." She takes his hand. "Beverly?"

Beverly looks bewildered, watching him limp and lean against the table and pick up his coffee, her gaze moving across the story of marks on his skin like she's reading a foreign language and trying to translate. "I… ask what?"

She circles her thumb in Will's palm. "If it's going to make you uncomfortable for Will to relax how he wants to."

Beverly's eyebrows lift again, more slowly, her eyes widening like the last piece of that translation is suddenly in place. "Last week, in Ten Forward." She clears her throat again, voice just a little strained. "You said something about," and Deanna hasn't in ten years seen her best friend blush so deep a color, so she's a little proud that Beverly manages to actually say it, "about - being on his knees for you-"

It's the tone that makes her so sure it's all right, and she suddenly can't bear to make him wait any longer. It's been a decade and more since anyone else saw Will Riker where he should be, kneeling at her side, and for a split second she can feel every single day of it.

"Will," she says, so very gentle, without breaking her gaze from Beverly's.

He lets out a breath that she can _feel_ and puts his mug down on the table and kneels, perfectly and smoothly as if it doesn't hurt at all, all in that one long-practiced motion and with that bright flash of joy and relief that brings a serene kind of bliss chasing in its wake.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you_ is all that's in his head, instantly: for one incredibly heady moment she thinks he might actually just come, or cry, or both, it's so much.

 _Shhh, shhh, relax now._ She looks down at him, rests her hand on his head, strokes his hair, gently trying to sooth the sudden rush of endorphins down to something softer. It's hard when her own heart is pounding and her own fierce joy is singing in tune with his, but control is what Will is trusting in her for, right in this moment more than ever, and she will never let him down. _Slowly, breathe. I've got you._

Will puts his forehead against her thigh. _I'm okay. I'd just -_

 _Forgotten what it's like, I know._ She leaves her fingers in his hair to ground him - to ground them both, really, her other hand just a little unsteady at picking up her mug again. It's only then that she dares to look back up, and Beverly is staring - not at Will but at her, with an expression and a mind full of open wonder and incredulity and envy.

"I think I'm jealous," she says, sounding not entirely calm herself. Deanna laughs with relief.

"You are."

Beverly chuckles and shakes her head. "My _god_ , Deanna. I had no idea…" The blush is back, and Deanna leans over a little, curious and teasing.

"What?"

"How it would _look_." Beverly winces, suddenly apologetic, mortified for entirely the opposite reason to Will's worry. "I'm sorry, I don't know what to - _how_ to -"

"Will's always been beautiful on his knees for me. And yes, you can still talk to him," she says, keeping the laughter back but a smile in her voice. "You don't need to do anything differently. Have another pastry," and _that_ makes Beverly laugh out loud and shake her head - but she does reach for one, anyway.

"You're going to need to give me somewhere to go with this - is there some kind of, I don't know, a _guide_ -"

Deanna laughs again, warmly. "I'm sure we can find you something."

"Mmm." Will shifts a little, calmer now, just leaning into the way her fingers still comb absently through his hair. "Did you keep all those textbooks you used to have?"

She gives him a mental kiss. "They're probably in the databases somewhere. Of course," she looks at Beverly with an open smile, "you can always just ask."

Beverly smiles awkwardly back. "If you're sure. I'll probably have a _lot_ of questions."

"Well we're not exactly short on time," Will says, with a weightless ease that makes her heart leap, and a smile of his own as she hands him his coffee. "Ask away."

 

*


	13. Medical Play

"I can't believe you asked if she wanted to watch," Will says, laughter in his voice and in his mind as he settles back on the bed and tucks one hand under the pillow, stretching the other arm out across the mattress.

Deanna smirks, putting both of their drinks carefully on the bedside table so that she can pick up the slim, smooth black device instead. It fits comfortably in her hand, a few inches shorter than Starfleet issue, capped with two broad prongs to generate and direct the energy field. She touches the controls with expert ease, setting it to tune up at one of the lowest settings - that's all they need, now that it's been a few days.

"You know Beverly. She's very thorough. I thought it might put her mind at ease." She sits down on the bed beside him, in the V of his outstretched arm, and reaches over for her glass.

"Did it?"

"I think the offer was enough." She takes a sip of wine, savoring the sharpness for a moment until the light in her hand turns a brighter blue, and she has to put the glass down again. Will's watching her with a softness in his eyes that means she can't help but lean down and kiss him, with that same softness, threading tendrils of affection through his mind.

"Mmmm." His eyes are closed, just lightly, when she sits up again, a look on his face that makes her smile tenderly.

"Are you sure you want me to do this?"

"Mm-hmm." He shifts comfortably, a little further onto his back, making sure she has all the access she needs. "Whenever you're ready."

Her smile brightens - it's impossible not to, with just how comfortable he is spread out for her, so relaxed and absolutely trusting. She could be holding the straight razor back in her hands and he would look just the same. It does indescribable things to her soul to know she has that, and from Will of all people...

Of course he can feel the lump in her throat. His eyes flicker open already fixed on her, and he pulls his hand from under the pillow to reach up for her.

 _Oh, imzadi._ "Come here," he murmurs, brushing his fingers down her arm, and she sets the dermal regenerator down for a moment and curls herself against him. He's always been cooler to the touch than her own skin, but still warmer than the room around them - and the mental is so tied to the physical for her, it's hard sometimes to tell how much of the warmth she always feels pressed against him is his body or his mind, it's all just as beautiful and enticing.

"I love you," he murmurs, sliding his fingers into her hair. "It's not as if you've never known..."

That he wanted this, exactly this between them, even when he knew he wasn't ready or was just too damned scared. He's never stopped wanting to be hers the way he should be.

"I know." She burrows against his side. "It's just-"

"A little overwhelming," and of course he knows that, too.

"A little." She kisses his shoulder, running her hand over his chest just because she needs to touch him, to feel his heart beating -

Will takes her hand in his and puts it straight over his heart and holds it there. She feels him nuzzle her hair just the same way he leans into her mind, and he trips a little over the words - it's been a lot of years, she can't fault him that - but they're familiar enough that suddenly she's back in their bed on Betazed, lying together just like this and feeling just the same.

" _Miéu'el shé el, shé_ _t'e zai_." Like anything else in true Cyndri it can't translate without losing almost too much telepathic depth to still make sense, but she's been operating in Standard for enough years that her mind automatically tries anyway. _Every beat of this is for you, because of you._

It's an archaic, ritual phrase, rich with centuries of meaning: but Will absolutely understands what he's saying and he respects her, and her world, too much to say something like that when he doesn't mean it with every single atom of his being.

It makes her feel so powerful, and so humble, and that's completely and utterly the point.

She pulls herself away from his side and leans over him, slipping her hand from his to plant it hard in the sheets beside his shoulder. "Will."

He looks up at her; totally relaxed but with a hint of how he looks to the Captain, waiting for the next order. It takes her breath away.

"I would do anything for you." She ducks her head to kiss him, brief and soft. "Anything," and another soft, slow kiss, "I _love_ you," and another, until she's just kissing him and pressing hot words and feelings into his mind because she needs him to know _\- Anything, and always, forever, whatever you need, anything you ask, do you understand -_

His hands come up to smooth her hair, cradle her face, gently push her back just enough to slip a smile in between them. "Deanna. Deanna," and there's something giddy in his voice but soothing in his touch, in his thoughts pressing back into hers. "Hey," he strokes his thumb across her cheek, "look at me," and she does.

His eyes are shining, with love and laughter and tears, and she feels the breathless tightness in her chest unravel because of course he understands, how could she forget?

Will chuckles and pulls her back down, her whole weight on his chest, and wraps still-bruised arms around her, warm and tight. The regenerator beeps, neglected, somewhere behind her; she can't help a smile, Will chuckling again into her hair.

She wraps her arms around him in return, nestling down into his embrace. "Can we do that in a little while?"

Will kisses her hair, his happiness and relaxation washing over her mind. "Sure."

 

Later, he'll spread himself out under her hands all over again and she'll rub her fingers into every bruise she's put on him, slow and hard and deliberate, and it'll feel for both of them - even when he's hissing at the pain - as if she's pressing all of that overwhelming love and devotion under his skin. She'll run the regenerator over each one, after, make him watch with her as it fades away - and that will be a feeling they share, too, as if everything she's just done isn't gone but just invisible, hidden safely away, no spot to mark the priceless treasure they both know is there.

He'll be high and sleepy and shaken when she's finished, and she'll gently insist on feeding him chocolate from her fingers before wrapping herself back around him and dimming the lights. His heartbeat will slip into time with hers even before either of them is asleep.

 

*


	14. Role Reversal

They’re taking the most direct route home that they can, which means passing directly through places that, at warp, they'd simply go around to avoid the potential – if fairly low – risks to the ship. Nowhere is as hazardous as the Briar Patch, but it's not a completely dull trip, either, like walking through somewhere they’d usually take a shuttle and seeing sights they’ve never really thought about before.

This area of space is a stellar graveyard, dense with the dark, heavy-element clouds of long-dead stars. Looking at the viewscreen it's like there's a veil across the view, almost nothing to be seen beyond the fog.

He’d worry, if he didn't know the crew are still on their finest form for years and they’ll be through it in a day or less. They’re only skimming the outer edge.

However, that does mean he can allow his mind to turn to other things…

Deanna looks at him, across the Captain’s field of view, just for a second before looking back to her console. It's a look they've been perfecting since their first day aboard the _D_ , and while none of them have ever spoken about it and there's not a flicker of acknowledgement or curiosity, he’s always certain that Picard sees it and just indulges them both. That look has saved the ship half a dozen times, so it's not an entirely unfair arrangement.

This time it's not urgent, just playful; he's certain Picard is ignoring that, too. He wonders idly if Beverly had breakfast in the Captain’s quarters this morning, if she’s said anything if she did.

 _I don't think so. She would ask first._ There's a reassurance to Deanna’s thoughts, but he gently turns it back with a touch of gratitude.

_I don't mind. He just might not get it as easily as Beverly does._

Pride, then; in him for the sentiment and how true she knows it is, and in Beverly too for how it really does seem to be easy. He should have known that Beverly Crusher would be the consummate friend and scientist about this whole thing.

_I had to send her six texts on traditional Cyndri interpersonal relationships and the entire history of the Enlightenment Period last night. Thank the Four Deities that someone else has written all this down so I don't have to._

He looks intently at his console so that he doesn't laugh – or something else, because he knows the quality and detail of the texts Deanna would recommend, and he won't pretend not to burn with pleasure at the knowledge that someone, especially someone so close to them, will read all of that and be picturing him with Deanna in every example.

It's a sexual pleasure, of course it is, but that's almost incidental to the way it makes his head and his heart feel, and it's that he finds hard to keep under wraps right now.

 _J'ei,_ Deanna whispers in the back of his mind – quieting, like whispering _hush_ in his ear but with her hand on the back of his neck, the feeling of shared understanding and the reminder that her control is always there if he needs it. _But it’s not the worst thing to look happy on duty,_ and he gives her a very tender mental caress for that reminder, too.

She looks up at him again, and this time she holds his gaze as she smiles. _You were thinking of what you want to do this evening?_

He smiles back at her and doesn't worry at all.

 

"I think I understand," Beverly says, reaching over the couch between them to give her fingers a light squeeze. Deanna smiles.

"I'm glad you do. It took me too long. Maybe we should have told you years ago."

Will chuckles from his spot on the rug beside her. He's leaning against the edge of the couch holding her wine, his forearm against the length of her calf where she's tucked her feet up, with his head resting comfortably on her thigh. She can feel his pulse against her fingers, where they're wrapped lightly around the back of his neck and toying absently with the ends of his hair.

Her mind won't quite let go of how easy this is. The way Beverly stopped during dinner and she'd obviously rehearsed the words, that they're her friends and she loves them both and whatever makes them happy makes her happy; the way Will put his hand on her arm and said _thank you,_ for both of them, and Beverly squeezed his hand, too. The proof of those words in Beverly's mind after dinner when they moved, still chatting about crew reviews, to sit more comfortably and Will knelt on the cushion beside the couch even before she sat down, and Beverly only asked if he wanted a drink while she was still up.

The way she thinks Beverly really does understand, at least from the perspective of an outside observer. There's something to be said for an objective opinion, and Deanna feels like she really should have considered that years ago, too.

"If I had your mother, I'd find it hard to figure out, too," Beverly says, reassuringly. Deanna gives her another smile.

"I just spent so long thinking I wanted what she wanted for me, even knowing I didn't. Not really. But I think I did, on some level. I just could never work out if it was really _me_ , or just wanting to make her happy." She sighs. It's good to talk about this, but even now there's a little voice in her head that sounds like her mother, saying that Lwaxana always knew she'd come around.

"You just wanted it on your own terms," Beverly says. "That's okay, you know. You don't have to turn into your mother to embrace your heritage. You're free to choose how you want to live your life, that doesn't change even if you happen to find the same traditions... appealing," and there's a twinkle in that gaze, amusement in how it flicks towards her hand on Will's neck.

She laughs, ruefully. "I can just _hear_ her saying 'I told you so, Little One'. She'll be right, but I'll still want to strangle her."

Beverly grins. "I'll put Sickbay on standby."

Will puts her glass on the floor beside his own and reaches across for her hand. She tangles their fingers together, grateful for his touch and his love and gods, he's been patient with her for _so_ many years…

 _We've been patient with each other._ He gives her the echo of his own past confusion, his own fears about what he wanted and why and what it would change about both their lives; the brief shuffle of memories like playing cards, of those moments when they've both nearly broken this unbreakable thing and still got each other through it in the end.

He kisses her thigh, and she lets her hand tighten a little on his neck as a thank you.

"Can I ask something about that?"

She gives Beverly a smile. "I thought we said you don't have to ask, if you want to ask."

Beverly smiles gamely back at her. "I don't know if Will's going to like it."

He grins, untangling his fingers to hand her glass back up, because he can feel the faint heat of not-quite-embarrassment under Beverly's curiosity, too, and she might need the synthehol when the question comes. "Try me," he says, just as game, and picks up his brandy.

"In one of the books I was reading - Kern, Kan, something-"

"Andrus Kjan," she says. " _The Dominant Mind_?" Something pulls at her from Will's thoughts, at the title but also a vague memory he can't place, of reading the same book…

"That one, yes - it talked about the psychology of control, and that was one of the traditional gestures," her fingers flit towards Will, "and since it seems to work for both of you, I just wondered -"

\- Will can almost remember, what it was about that book, something in the later chapters -

"Have you ever put a collar on him?" Beverly asks it easily, like she's really and truly just curious, and Will thinks _oh god, yeah, that was it_ and actually shudders under her fingers.

" _Fuck,_ " it's rough and uneven coming out of his mouth, muffled a little when he presses his face against her thigh, puts his glass down with a shaking hand. _Fuck. Deanna…_

She slides her hand up into his hair, gently cradling his head against her. " _J'ei_ , shh," but she can't quite keep the delight out of her voice or her mind.

"I'm sorry," Beverly starts to say, but stops when she and Will both laugh. His is liquid, trembling, _what have we created_ laughed unsteadily into her head; her own tastes like electric power on her tongue.

"Don't be," she says. It's not the same crackling pleasure that she's feeling, in Beverly's mind, but it is definitely amusement, amazement, wickedness and friendship all bound together, and she's reminded all over again why this woman is her best friend in the world. "I think you might be onto something," and Beverly grins brightly at her again, calmly takes a sip of wine with that grin shining delightedly in her eyes.

Deanna puts her own glass on the window and looks down at Will, with his eyes closed and pressed hard against her thigh. He's calming a little, but this is too good and she really wants to know. She strokes her thumb over the top of his head.

"Would you like that, imzadi?" She could keep it private between them, of course, but it's even better - he _wants_ even more to be allowed to say it out loud, even though he's not sure he can find the words. Besides, Beverly asked.

"I know we've thought about it," she carries on, half an answer and half gently coaxing. "But it's been a few years, so you need to tell me again." He might not be able to get the words out himself, which tells her everything she needs to know, but she's going to help him try. "You can tell me, if that's something you want," and another glance at Beverly finds the other woman watching her with something like awe, now.

She smiles, a confident, feminine smile that feels natural on her lips, pressing it into Will's mind. "I think _I'd_ like to," and Will breathes out against her skin and rolls his head to the side to glare up at Beverly.

"What have you _done_ ," it should be a question but it's not, it's an admission and a thank you all in one, his voice turning low and full of power all of his own. " _Fuck_ , yeah, I'd love that. Do we have one?"

"I'll get one for you," she promises, easy and without thinking. "I can have one made at home, or we'll go shopping when we get to starbase."

Will shudders again at the thought of that, rubbing his head against her thigh. "Okay. I might have to ask to have you watch her put it on me," he mutters with a sudden, wicked grin, shooting Beverly a look, and she finally blushes almost the color of her own hair.

Deanna smirks, sliding her hand back down to his neck. "Maybe," she murmurs, laughing. It sounds like her mother to her own ears, and that's okay; she doesn't care. This might be what she's been trying to avoid all these years, the ritual and obligation of being a Daughter of Betazed, but Beverly's right: she can make it her own, be that and be herself and be Starfleet all at once. She was born to play this role and when it's brought her _this,_ how can she want anything else?

 

*


	15. Object Insertion

He's in no way an art critic, not even an enthusiast - Deanna is still never going to let him live down his complete inability to engage with the Art Museum, no matter how much they both tried - but Will does have a very definite appreciation for Betazoid glass sculpture. He's even seen pieces made once or twice: it's some kind of alchemy he'll never understand, watching an artist's gloved hands twist and thread the white-hot liquid glass into ever more intricate shapes, manipulating molten substance and temperature and color all at the same time to produce something elegant and beautiful.

This particular piece is made of three thick strands of glass twisted together by a master; each one is a blue so deep it's almost black, with the deep green glitter of versina dust trapped just under the surface like stars in a frozen night sky. It's as tall as his hand and just as wide at the base, where it can stand free on a display and the three interlinked pieces twist intricately up beside each other, breaking out into smaller buds, dense with crystals, like gravity is just something to be ignored.

It's just typically Betazoid to develop an entire art form for the sole purpose of giving both visual and physical pleasure with a single object.

Deanna makes a beautiful sound, soft and quiet in the back of her throat, as he lets the three buds of the longest strand press lightly around her clit. It's cool in his hand so he knows it must be almost cold against her skin, especially right there where she's so much hotter. She's already so relaxed, stretched lusciously out on the bed, and so gorgeously wet - he can still taste her on his tongue - that the glass slides smoothly against her skin and down and into her with only a gentle pressure from his hand, and the sound she makes then is definitely a moan.

He drops his head and kisses the soft swell of her breast, holding the very tip just inside her. It may not be that long but just that one strand is two inches and more in diameter, and even with how relaxed she is, he can feel the slight muscle tremors as she breathes out, letting herself just _feel…_

"Good?"

Deanna smiles, bright and flushed, reaching for him with the hand that isn't gripping the pillow under her head. "Mmm, oh, yes." She puts her hand on his back, pulling him closer; he grins and leans a little more comfortably against her. "You can go a little more, if you want to... mmm," he does, pushing gently, and she bites her lip and arches her hips a little more. "Oh, that's - _more_ than good, please, keep going…"

"You look perfect like this," he murmurs in her ear. Deanna laughs, slightly breathless and definitely pleased. "Ready for it to get really good?"

_That happened a very long time ago,_ is what floats into his mind, even as she turns her head to meet his eyes and breathes out a quiet, "yes," that's barely more than a moan.

He slides his free hand, the hand not about to do truly beautiful things to her, under her shoulders, leaning in a little more until she's almost half underneath him on the bed, his arm stretched down the length of her stomach. "Keep looking at me," he murmurs, looking right in her eyes, and pushes a little more.

That first strand going deeper is enough to make her hum with pleasure, waves of it starting to pulse through his mind all over again. The second is only half as long but hardly much thinner, each bud rising higher than the next to give a softly pointed spiral, just further back enough to fit inside her ass and when that presses against her, pushes in, Deanna gasps and clenches her fingers in the pillow but still doesn't even blink her eyes away from his. "Oh, gods…"

"Keep going?"

Deanna moans, digging her fingernails into his back. " _Yes,_ gods, don't you dare stop," and he flashes her a grin and pushes it in the rest of the way, slow but smooth. The first strands going all the way in send a long shudder through her; the third, untwisted into three slender branches of its own in just the right way, slides between her inner lips and pushes them open, presses right over her clit, and when he starts to rock the whole thing she clamps her thighs shut around his hand and starts to grind her hips in answer, breathing hard and desperate. " _Yes,_ please, don't let go, don't let go…"

"I'm never letting you go," he tells her, honest and raw and grinning when her eyes slide closed just because she's losing herself in how good it feels. _My god, you're incredible,_ and Deanna threads mental fingers into his thoughts like gripping his hair - and there, right there is the rising pleasure she wants to share with him, that explosion that's going to break them both when it hits, building inside her, coming so close…

_Harder,_ and it's in his head because she's beyond coherent words out loud - just writhing and whimpering, high and hot and needy. _Harder, please, make me feel it, I need to feel it - oh gods, oh, oh, oh, yes,_ oh _-_ Will _-_

Deanna screaming in his head as she comes is, he thinks, when the pure pleasure recedes enough for something approaching thought at all, still just about the best feeling he's ever had.

She's curled into him, liquid and relaxed all over again, but he doesn't try and move his hand; just flexes his fingers enough to keep them from tingling, without letting anything slip out of her yet. She could probably fall asleep like this for a while, he thinks, from the feel of her mind. _You can, I'll wake you in a while,_ and he shapes the words from the image of exactly how he'd like to do that: roll her onto her stomach and spread her thighs, move the whole intricate thing in and out of her this time but go slow, so slow she'll hardly be awake until she starts to come all over again…

Deanna opens her eyes and pulls his head down for a hard, quick, open-mouthed kiss, then shoves him back with a wanton grin and rolls onto her stomach, spreading her thighs.

He grins like an idiot, kisses the back of her shoulder and moves his hand back down.

 

*


	16. Pegging

"Your turn again tonight," Deanna murmurs in his ear, her best wicked little smile in her voice, and then steps out of the turbolift and he's left with _that thought_ all day - and even worse, or even better, he's left knowing that every time she touches his mind she can feel him thinking about it.

By the time he walks into his quarters at nineteen hundred hours, he's actually not sure he'll even last long enough for her to even take her turn with him, he's that wound up with anticipation and need.

"Hi," she says, from where she's sitting on his couch - and then he's right in front of her on the floor, kneeling up to pull her head down and kiss her, hard and hungry, and she's laughing into his mouth with that exact same wicked tone. Her hand slides between them and between his legs, tracing the line of his cock through his uniform, and the slide of her thoughts against the need in his head feels exactly the same. _Mmm, did I do that?_

He pulls back, keeping his hand in her hair and glaring playfully into her eyes. "All damn day," he growls out, and Deanna grins, pleased.

"And you didn't do anything about it all day?"

He didn't even _think_ about it, he realises, and he didn't think she could be any more proud of him but he was wrong - she didn't intend to make him suffer quite that much, and that he's just taken it without question sends a heat through her that he can feel just as clearly.

"Let's skip dinner," she says, in a slightly rough voice, and he couldn't agree more.

They're naked before they're even in the bedroom, leaving pieces of his uniform and hers scattered along even that short trail; she pushes him onto the bed and he lets himself fall, spread-eagled, hard enough that the mattress bounces slightly under his weight even as Deanna kneels and crawls on top of him to straddle his hips. He's been half-hard all day and it's not taking anything at all to get him the rest of the way, so when she sits back on her heels and her weight traps his thighs against the bed, all she has to do is put her hand around him and he groans, tipping his head back.

Deanna gives him one long, slow, firm stroke that ends with her hand tight around the head of his cock, so hard it's just on the right side of painful before she lets go and he sags back into the sheets. She smiles - still that same wicked smile, and he feels giddy and in love every time he feels it - inside his head, and leans down over him for the briefest of kisses before rolling over and reaching for the bedside dresser.

He pulls his legs up, knees bent and feet planted flat, just like lying with his head in her lap on her office couch. Deanna's eyes sparkle as she rolls back over to face him with a familiar bottle in her hand.

"Now _there's_ a thought." She puts a hand on his knee, tugging gently. "Further apart, let me do this properly."

He obeys instantly with a quick, dragged-in breath, shifting his hips down to give her the best access he can, and he's rewarded with the quiet sound of the bottle opening - a bare few seconds more of anticipation and then her slick fingers are right _there_ , not quite inside him yet but rubbing, circling, teasing…

He pushes eagerly into her mind, a hot thread of tangled need and excitement; feels her following that thread back into his mind to submerge herself in how he feels, because that's always how she does this so well, and right now it's how she knows that it's just fine to add more cold gel and slide two fingers inside him, slow and smooth.

The sound he feels break from his mouth is half joyous laughter and half the low, hot pleasure she's sharing with him, tipping over into entirely pleasure as she starts to move her fingers and heat burns its way up his spine.

"Mmm…" Deanna hums appreciatively. "That's good, isn't it?"

He aims for a breath in between the slow thrusts of her fingers. It takes him a few tries to get enough to speak, even roughly. "Mm, yeah."

"I love doing this to you," as she curls her fingers up, just enough, and he groans and fists a hand in the sheets.

" _Good_ \- mm, I love you -" he means to finish it with _you doing this to me_ but she teases a third fingertip, just ever so lightly and his voice breaks into another rough groan.

Deanna smiles down at him, rubbing his thigh with her other hand, pleasure sparkling along the warm golden tendrils threading into his thoughts. "Are you really ready for that?"

He laughs breathlessly. "You're - mm, _god_ , you're too good at this," and then he's moaning all over again as she pours a generous amount more gel, cold as it trickles around her fingers, and then that third slides in alongside the first two and proud delight pulses in his head.

"I suppose you _have_ been thinking about this all day," she says, mischievously.

He wants to just laugh again, but he can't catch his breath enough - she's teasing just the right place inside him with every stroke, and every time he has to dig his fingers harder into the bed just to keep from either reaching for her or for his cock, throbbing against his belly. "You'd know… mm, _yeah,_ come on, Deanna, please…"

That smile again; _only if you_ "don't," one last, slow thrust of her fingers, "move," as she pulls her fingers out, just as slow but all the way, and he twists his own into the sheets and bites the inside of his cheek to make sure he does as he's told instead of trying to follow her hand.

_Shhh,_ soft and pleased with him as she reaches over to the bedside again. _It'll feel even better,_ and then she turns back to him with a smile full of wicked promise and a very familiar glass sculpture in her hands.

It's familiar because it should be - he remembers watching it being made, choosing the color that _feels_ like Deanna to him and having her do the same, trying and somehow managing not to be embarrassed at all even with the number of very detailed questions the artist insisted on having answered. They've been worth it a hundred times over: finished, it's really a work of art, made of two organic spirals twisted together like crystalline tree branches, one a deep violet-blue with strands of gold under the surface and the other an equally deep scarlet with flecks of dark bronze.

"Come back here," he says hoarsely, and she does, crawling back over to him and throwing one leg over his hips. He reaches for her hand to help her sit up, locks his arm in place to support her until she's straddling him comfortably and she can put the weight of the sculpture on his stomach. It's cold when it touches his skin; she smiles playfully at the way he twitches, runs her fingernails down his ribs just to make him do it again.

" _Deanna,_ " he laughs her name as she pushes up onto her knees, to make enough space between them for his hands. He puts one on her hip, uses the other to line up the deep red side of the glass against her and hold it still.

Deanna sinks down, slow and easy, with a long, soft sigh as it slides into her. "Mmmm…" Her smile flashes hot, her thighs tensing around his waist; her hips are almost flush to his skin but for the long violet-and-gold curve of glass standing up between them, so he slips his hand free and lets her stay there, just taking in the feel of it for a long moment.

"You look gorgeous like that," he says, because she does, always, and more that he doesn't have words for but doesn't need to. This is Deanna the way he's always seen her: confident, powerful, gentle and luminous. This is the woman who owns him, body and soul, and it still just makes him so amazed that she wants that as much as he does and they've got here at long last.

Deanna puts her hands on his chest and slides them up to his shoulders as she leans down, with a catch in her breath and his when that long, hard curve presses against her clit; she kisses him, soft and tender, smiling down at him like some decadent siren about to take him utterly apart. _Imzadi._ "Turn over," she murmurs, and lifts herself back up to let him move.

He rolls onto his stomach; his cock rubs against the sheets, a brief, delicious frustration because it's not nearly enough to get him close but it draws a hum of pleasure from him all the same. Deanna shifts back to straddle the back of his thighs, and her hand fits perfectly in the small of his back with just enough pressure to hold him down.

"Ready?" Her fingers slide back between his cheeks, slippery and opening him up all over again.

"Mmm. Yeah," and that's all he has to say, before there's that familiar pressure and _mmm, please, come on…_

"Shh." She rubs her fingers up and down his back, gentle but firm. "Shh, that's it," as the first twist slips all the way in and he moans, buries his face in the pillows. It feels as good as ever, cool and slick and hard, made to hit just _that_ spot right inside him with perfect precision as it slides deeper.

"Oh, god…" He drags in a breath, twisting one hand back into the sheets and reaching back for her with the other. "Deanna…"

Her fingers slide between his, brushing their palms together; she pushes a little more, the second twist opening him wider again as she starts to rock her hips just enough, and he wants more than anything just to press back hard, just take all of it, everything -

_Tell me you're sure about that,_ Deanna thinks, and he arches his hips in answer even against the soft pressure of her hand still on his back. She can know he's sure even better than he will, if she wants to, but he's equally happy to beg if that's what she wants.

_I want you,_ he pushes the thought into her mind, fills it with every atom of need in him. _I want you, I want this_ and the memory of how it feels, so hard and heavy and gloriously full…

Deanna tightens her grip on his hand and moves and he moans and keeps on moaning, low and rough and shuddering - it's so good, that heavy pressure spreading him open, pressing hard and perfect and relentless, a line of hot bright pleasure inside him like striking sparks off a flint and starting a wildfire.

And then her skin touches his, just lightly and then more firm - the top of her thighs, against his ass, and he almost comes just from knowing she's all the way inside him.

_Deanna,_ he thinks, only because he's sure of her name and not much else, and feels her smile.

"I love doing this to you," she murmurs, quiet but he can hear how true that is like she's shouting it, feel her right there and shining with deep, warm pleasure. Her fingers rub gently into the dip of his spine. "You love this so much," and damn, but he does, he loves how it feels to be this intimately locked together, so different to being inside her - he's done this with a dozen or more people in his life but it's not _this_ , it's not the same at all because what he loves is being taken like this, by Deanna, and only ever by Deanna.

_I love_ you _,_ he thinks, because that's what it really is, what makes him vibrate with need and pleasure, what gets him so close without her even making a single move…

The only warning he has is the familiar way his world goes faintly golden, like he's standing in a hot shaft of sunlight - and then Deanna's hand is on the back of his neck, just the lightest pressure and that's all it takes to make him come, so hard he gasps and ruts against the bed and Deanna has to fold herself down along his back to hold him down, pressing desperate kisses into his skin.

She doesn't move her hand until he collapses under her, completely spent, buzzing like a live wire and panting for breath; when she finally does let go it's to seek his other hand in the crumpled sheets, and he feels her body relax along the whole length of his, slow and liquid like a sated cat.

"Mmm..." He tries to squeeze her fingers, tries to laugh with joy but it comes out a broken groan. She knows anyway. "Imzadi… my _god_ , what you can do to me…"

Deanna smiles against his shoulder; he can feel her trying to breathe, too, and finding it almost as hard - but then there's never entirely such a thing as only his orgasm, or hers, not when they're together.

"And that one was amazing," she murmurs in his ear. He shivers, buries his face back in the pillows.

_Mmm, incredible. Don't move?_ He just wants to feel this, stay in this moment for absolutely as long as they can.

Deanna kisses the back of his neck with a soft, golden smile. _I really wasn't planning to._

 

*


	17. Massage

It's not officially crew evaluation time for another few weeks, but since they've had the time it seemed like a good idea to get them done early, particularly in view of how much the crew's been through recently. He's proud of his teams that they won't reach Starbase 516 until tomorrow and already the final reports are starting to come in.

Of course he curses every time, too, since he has to read them all. He's working his way through the astrophysics department report and trying valiantly not to fall asleep, when Beverly slides into one of the empty chairs beside him and puts her own PADD on the table.

"I thought I'd find you here."

He looks up and smiles at her. It's common knowledge that he, and Deanna, tend to prefer reading reports in the white noise of Ten Forward - he's pretty sure the junior officers here can tell when it's evaluation time just by watching the both of them, just the way they used to on the _D._

"If you've come to give me another report…"

She grins apologetically. "It's already in your mail."

"You're a cruel woman," he says, with feeling.

"Doing crew evaluations early was your idea," she shoots back, playful. Because she's finished her damn report, no doubt - that always makes a department head happy.

"Just makes it end sooner, not any less tedious." He reaches for his glass and takes a long swallow of ale. "Have you ever read anything Lieutenant Stuvak writes? It's so dry it actually hurts."

"Not in the good way, I gather," she says, voice just that little bit lower, almost secretive. There's a faint blush in her cheeks as soon as the words are out of her mouth, and it's that as much as the tease that makes him grin for the first time in hours.

"Why, Doctor Crusher. Deanna been spilling a few more secrets?" She blushes even deeper then, and his grin turns broad and interested. He tabs the PADD off and swaps it for his drink. "She _has_. Come on, what did she tell you?"

" _Will,_ " Beverly hisses, and he laughs.

"Fine, don't tell me. I'll ask later." He won't tell her, but it's cute that she's embarrassed on his behalf when he really can't find it in him to feel the same, even though they're in public. "But you didn't just stop by to torture me with evaluation reports, did you."

"Not just that." Her smile is sheepish at being caught out. "How are you, Will?"

"I know you don't mean physically," but he pulls the sleeve of his uniform up, anyway, to reveal smooth unmarked skin. "See? Good as new."

Beverly shakes her head. "I trust Deanna," she says, and he can't help feeling a swell of pride because he knows how much Deanna's done to earn that. Beverly is caring to a fault and beyond, after all, and she's never seen a hurt she didn't want to heal, so he appreciates her acceptance all the more.

He reaches over and lays a hand on her arm. "You being okay with us, it means a lot. To both of us."

Beverly squeezes his hand. "I told you, I'm happy that you're both happy."

"Then what?" 

"I've just been watching you working the last few days, and I wanted to make sure you're okay. In case it's hard, now that you're…" She makes a gesture that means absolutely nothing, but says everything.

 _Ah,_ he thinks, and _of course_. Beverly is handling all of this better than maybe anyone will, but he should have realised even she would feel a little of what's always been his fear - that the people he works with, the people he needs to trust and follow him without question, will look at him differently. That they'll expect him not to be able to give Deanna orders or hell, give _anyone_ orders, not to be in charge and in control or command the way he excels at, once they've seen him willingly hurt and on his knees and completely owned by her.

_Will?_

Deanna's quick touch is gentle, but picked through with tension in response to his own; he sends a kiss and a warm reassurance back. _I got this, don't worry._

_If you're sure._

_I need to be able to explain this,_ and her wordless response is like the feel of her pressed up against his back with her arms around him; a quiet, proud strength that suffuses every inch of him not because she thinks he needs the support, but just because she wants to give it.

He frames his fingertips around his glass, carefully pulling the words together. It's going to come out to more than Beverly, and he's going to have to have this right.

"Hard is the wrong word." He shakes his head. "Sorry, I'm gonna be bad at this. Never had to explain it to anyone before."

Beverly smiles ruefully. "That's okay. I'm pretty sure I'm not making it easy."

He chuckles. "You've made it incredibly easy, believe me. I guess you just have to understand that we're still the same people. I've got no problem giving Deanna orders, and she's got no problem following them, or arguing with them," and Beverly laughs at that. He grins with her. "But we have always been this to each other, too. We've just not been ready to make it…"

He pauses for the right word, and Beverly's eyebrows shoot up. "Permanent?"

"Obvious." It's almost the same thing. "At least never at the same time." He puts his drink down. "I've wanted this for years. I've just not been ready, or been too damned afraid of what it means. Deanna, too."

"And now you're not."

He smiles. "There's a word, in Cyndri. _Za_ _míiel_ _._ It translates horribly, but I guess the closest meaning would be something like, self-awareness. Knowing your own soul well enough to accept every part of it."

"I never knew you were such a linguist," she says, eyes dancing. He snorts.

"I'm about the least fluent you'll ever meet, but it has its advantages." He wishes he could get the full meaning, all the nuances across to her, but at least this is a start. "No, it's not hard. I can be Deanna's and still be her commanding officer, I've done that for years. She can own me," he can't help grinning at the look on her face, "and still take orders from me. It's just different parts of the whole, just the way you're always a doctor and a mother and everything else. It's not that they never come into conflict, you just learn yourself well enough to deal with it when they do."

He can tell by the look on her face that he's made sense, even before she gives that rueful smile again. "I can understand that."

"You're always Wes's mother," he says, understanding along with her. "Even when he's not here and no one sees it."

"Of course."

"It's the same thing. I haven't had anyone but Deanna see this side of me since I left Betazed, but that doesn't mean it went away." He arches his eyebrows, gives her a playful but hopeful smile. "And I've still done pretty well as your First Officer this whole time, haven't I?"

Beverly laughs, warm, and covers his hand with hers again. "The best."

 

Xupta tree oil smells like a mix of lavender, rosemary and cocoa butter, and it's silky and warm from Deanna's hands as she smooths it along the line of his shoulders. He lets out a pleased hum and resettles his head on the pillow, letting his eyes drift closed.

_What did you tell Beverly this time?_

Deanna laughs softly, her hands moving down his arm in long, gentle strokes. "What makes you think I told her anything?"

Aside from the fact that he _knows_ , the playfulness in her voice completely gives her away. He gives her the memory of Beverly's hot, if brief, blush; she laughs louder.

"I was smiling too much in our review meeting, I think." She moves to his other arm. "She asked what I'd been doing to you to look that happy, so I told her."

"That you'd been fucking me out of my mind all night with our own personal toy selection?"

Amusement tingles in his head. "Something like that."

This time he laughs, even though it's muffled in the pillow. _If I'd known you'd be this amazing when we finally did this…_

Deanna sits back a little again and starts over from low on his back, firmer the second time around with slow, circular strokes into his muscles, enough to stretch the warm, oiled skin under her hands. He can feel the way she's quietly projecting waves of relaxation into his mind with each stroke; by the time she's working back down he's floating a little under her hands, just breathing slow and steady and calm as Deanna slowly works every scrap of tension out of his body and mind.

"You did well explaining to Beverly," she says, almost absently, thumbs working at the base of his neck.

"Mmm." He feels a little absent himself; he's never known anyone as good at this as Deanna. "You were listening?"

_I'm always listening, imzadi._

He chuckles quietly. _So you are._

 _Is that okay?_ She's working her fingers across his shoulders, pressing hard enough to send a pleasant buzz through him. He can't reach back to touch her so he reaches for her mind instead, for those soft golden strands of feeling in his head.

 _You know it is._ She does: he can feel that, but he's felt those occasional flickers too - it's been barely a few weeks but it feels so natural that sometimes for just an instant, so sharply, she can hardly believe it's real again. He understands that perfectly, not just the giddy amazement of rediscovering this but the memories in those moments, of years spent being too scared or too distracted by unimportant things -

 _We're here now._ He brushes his fingertips against her knee; Deanna stops and reaches down to tangle her slippery fingers with his, and he gives them a gentle squeeze. He remembers why they weren't ready before, too, but only in the same way he remembers not knowing her at all - something that still makes sense when he looks back, but he just can't imagine any more.

 _I want this, imzadi. I want you,_ and he gives it every level of meaning he can, spiritual and sexual and emotional, because he means it - he wants every aspect of Deanna Troi, wants her to be his friend and lover, colleague and confidante, his soulmate the way she's always been but more, more of all of it, anything he can have of her and it's not really want, it's _need_ , just like he needs to eat or breathe.

He pushes himself up on his elbows, twists as much as he can and tugs gently at her hand. Deanna lets herself fall onto the bed beside him, pressed close with one leg still hooked over his hips, and he brushes her hair back with soft fingers.

"You think I explained it okay to Beverly?"

She reaches up and runs her fingers through his hair in return. "Yes," so he smiles.

"Then let me tell you what I told her." He pulls her hand to his lips and kisses her palm. The words come back to him from the back of his mind from years ago: a private but ritual commitment in a way that makes this absolutely resolute between them. " _Miéu'el shé_ _mi. Miéu'el shé mi thaza_ _._ " _I'm yours. Every single part of me is yours._

He does keep finding himself falling back on her native tongue, but it's the only way that comes close to framing how either of them feels about this. "That's what I want, and I'm ready for what that means. Don't ever doubt that anymore. _Rabiel,_ " _please take me_ , and Deanna slides her hand behind his neck and pulls him into a kiss, and that absolute love he keeps feeling just fills his head again - so hot and bright it _tastes_ of her, fresh and violet and soothing even though it's so blindingly beautiful to feel.

 _We should have known,_ he thinks - that they mean too much to each other, after all this time, not to have fallen this fast and this hard when they finally stopped fighting it - and Deanna laughs, like bright golden bells in his head.

 _I think we did._ There's the faintest sheen of tears in her eyes; her smile is radiant, her voice quiet and honest, joyful and just as intense. " _Miéu'el di shé, imzadi,_ " with her hands on the back of his neck and over his heart, exactly where they should be to accept the mind and soul he's willingly offering up to her. She means it and she _needs_ it just the way he does, too, he can feel it. It makes his heart sing. _You belong to me, Will Riker._

He grins and kisses her with everything he has.

 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Xupta tree oil is a canon thing, the scent I used is this stuff which is amazing: http://www.tattoogoo.com/product/tattoo-goo-salve/


	18. Leather / Masturbation

Over the years they've spent far longer than a few weeks at a time out in deep space with only the ship and their crewmates for company, but when it's been somewhat of a forced confinement - as much as they've been making the most of it - it's definitely refreshing to get an evening out somewhere different.

Starbase five-sixteen is one of the more lightly populated Deanna's ever been to. There are a half dozen other ships docked, but only one is larger than the _Enterprise_ \- a Galaxy-class, the _Venture_ , and even though it's not the same, the sight of her does something to Deanna's heart that makes Will wrap his arms around her shoulders and pull her back against his chest, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

She reaches up and covers his hand with hers. There's only a faint reflection in the plexiglass of the observation deck, but when she focuses her gaze on that instead of what's outside, it makes her heart ache with something entirely different and far more sweet.

Will smiles at her through his reflection, resting his cheek on her hair. _We look good together, huh?_

She smiles back at him. _We always have._

He leans down, leaking intent into her mind, and she turns her head to meet his kiss. It's playful with just an edge of sensuality, and they're right out in the open where anyone could see and it doesn't matter at all.

Will smiles into her mouth, and into her eyes as he breaks the kiss and lets her go, reaching for her hand instead.

"I like this on you," he says as they walk, fingering the sleeve of her jacket. Starbases are always a neutral sort of temperature, certainly not cold but nowhere near the comfort levels of her quarters or Will's, so she's wearing the light jacket she replicated for the Ba'ku planet and the soft reddish-brown leather is keeping her pleasantly warm as they stroll through the public thoroughfare.

Add in Will's appreciation, and it's definitely worth having kept it.

He grins at her noticing his preoccupation. "You just look great in leather," he says, unrepentant.

She can't help teasing. "I think you will, too."

That sweet-sharp anticipation bubbles up, for just a moment, from where it's been living just under the surface of his mind; Will slides his hand down to tangle their fingers together. She squeezes his hand and turns toward the Andorian café they're about to pass by. "Come on. I'm starving."

 

Deanna grew up on unreplicated food, and she's still sure she can tell the difference even when it should be impossible - so she's always loved when Will cooks, but even better is having someone else cook for them both and she gets to sit with him, holding hands over the table like they're just two people head-over-heels in love.

Afterwards they walk off the meal hand-in-hand through the starbase arboretum, where the night cycle is just beginning and the lights are low, dusk-flowering plants bursting with color against the starfield outside. It's peaceful, beautiful, and she's enjoying the effect it has on Will's mind as much as the calm quiet itself, when she catches the thought.

She should just let it flit through his mind and be gone, again. But they _are_ alone, and it's just the right time of day that it's very likely no one will come in but they can't be _entirely_ certain, and Will is standing there in front of the open stars…

She pulls the thought back into focus just before it fades, and feels his eyes snap to hers. She smiles up at him. She's not going to make him, if he really doesn't want to, but… "Would you do that for me?"

His heart beating is practically audible, and there's a hot edge to the way he grips the thought in her mind. "I told you. I'll do anything for you."

"Do you want to?"

He doesn't have to answer that in words - she can see the image in his head, clear as glass, the way he'd have it in his fantasy: her own dark eyes watching him, soft and sensual, while he kneels in front of her, in front of this window, and desperately tries to make himself come before someone sees -  

Dark, passionate heat uncoils in her chest. She looks up into his eyes and takes a short, slow, but deliberate step back; she doesn't think anyone else would notice, but the tiniest of shivers runs through him as she pulls her hand from his.

"Hands behind your back."

He doesn't even hesitate. She smiles.

"Good. Get down on your knees," and he doesn't break his gaze from hers for even a second as he obeys, easy and smooth even though she can feel the bright tension snap into place and vibrate through him. He wants this, she wouldn't make him if he didn't, but it really would be so easy for someone to walk by and see…

She sits, too, facing him, settling comfortably as if they're just going to meditate in front of the stars together. Will's heart is pounding, his head full of want and dread and hot delight, and she doesn't need to have one hand fisted in his emotions to know he's growing hard already - but his gaze is still steady on hers, and that's what makes her feel like the luckiest woman in the galaxy.

"Spread your knees a little." She keeps her voice soft, with a sensual smile. "You'll be more comfortable," and Will lets out a rough, laughed breath even as he does what he's told.

"You want me comfortable?"

"I want you however I can get you," she says, and he laughs again, just as soft.

"Tell me what to do." The words come out hot and quiet and intent. "Please," and she smiles.

"What if I just told you to stay like this?"

He doesn't look away, but his eyes close for half a moment as he takes a breath. "I would," and she knows he's not lying, even though there's already a tight tremor in his voice. She wonders - deliberately loud in her mind where he'll see it without question, especially when he's hardly blinking from her gaze - how long he could stand it if she did, until he'd start begging for her to let him touch himself…

"Not very long," he says, unsteady and rueful. She smiles.

"Would you like something else, then?"

Will takes another deep breath. "Yeah. Please."

She gives him the image she wants, his fantasy from her viewpoint: he lets out that breath, hard, and then suddenly shaky as he does what she's asking - opens his uniform just enough to pull his cock free, hard enough already to stand tall between his spread thighs, and Deanna bites her lip at just how beautiful a sight this is.

 _Mine._ She doesn't even think it consciously, but Will's grin is sudden and broad and wolfish.

"Yours," he growls out, low and bright, still looking right into her eyes, and deliberately wraps his hand around the base of his cock.

She hasn't told him to do that, but she can't fault his initiative, or his meaning. She flashes him a grin of her own.

"Make yourself come for me," she says, and Will instantly drags his own hand up the length of his cock and starts to stroke, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from groaning.

_No, now that's not fair, is it, imzadi? Aren't you going to let me hear how it feels?_

His eyes go a little wild, and the soft, "fuck, Deanna, please," makes her laugh gently again.

"Do as I tell you," she says, calm but firm, and this time the groan easily escapes his throat.

" _Yes_ , imzadi," and _gods_ , the _sound_ of that, the way he says it, like it's a reflex…

"I _like_ that." She feels luminous, like she's burning right with him. "You sound like you like this, too," and Will groans louder, hand fisted hard around the head of his cock, eyes still locked onto hers like he's holding onto her gaze just to keep himself upright.

" _Yeah,_ " though he has to gasp it out, breath already starting to come in harsh little pants for air. "Damn it, _god_ , I -" _love it, love you_

"You love that anyone could see." She smiles, soft and sensual, just the way he wants it. "Do you know what they'd see?" She gives him the image framed in hot feeling - the wild, helpless, wanton look on his face, the tension in every inch of his body and the hot mess of emotion in his head; the tightness of his fingers and the way he's stroking himself, hard and twisting and reaching desperate, the deep red swell of his cock under his hand - _look at yourself, Will, how you look right now._ "You wouldn't even be able to stop," and she doesn't even make it a question, there's no point. "You'd let anyone watch you come for me, right here, wouldn't you?"

He moans, helpless, loud enough to prove her right. " _Yes_."

She can't resist. "Yes…?"

Will makes a soft, keened sound, his eyes sliding closed, the wet sound of his hand loud under the way he gasps it out. " _Yes_ , imzadi…"

 _That's better._ "Do you want to come?"

He's so tense he's shaking with it. " _Yes,_ imzadi," and it's like he's saying it that way _on purpose_ and he is - grins, wild and bright as soon as she realises that, even though he's half a breath from falling apart.

She presses _hard_ inside his head, right down deep, and Will jerks and cries, groaning _yes, imzadi, thank you, imzadi_ and comes hard and messy all over his hand, all over his uniform and the grass under his knees.

She crawls over to him before he's even spent, presses up against him and puts her hand on the back of his neck, pulling him close while he trembles and tries to get his breath back. Will presses his face into the crook of her shoulder.

"God, that was just…" He shudders, hard; she feels him move his hand, wipe it in the grass as best he can. She tilts her head against his and strokes the back of his neck lightly with her fingertips. He makes a sound that might be a laugh, if he had enough air in his lungs. "You're not gonna make me walk home after that, are you?"

She smirks, teasing. "Would I do that?"

 

*


	19. Olfactophilia (Scent)

It’s when they walk into Beverly's quarters for poker night and there’s a cushion on the floor beside where she's sitting on her couch, plain and unassuming but deliberately placed - that’s when he thinks, if he could ever be in love with someone who wasn’t Deanna, this woman would definitely be in the running.

The Captain is already sitting in the opposite chair, out of uniform and nursing a cup of tea; he looks calm, relaxed, and Beverly's got a soft smile on her face. There's definitely a subtle charge in the air, and a faint but pretty color to Beverly's cheeks that he's sure the Captain is oblivious to: he can't help giving Deanna's mind a light nudge and a private grin.

She smiles mischievously in his head. _Don't push them. They'll figure it out soon enough._

"We're a little early," she says out loud, politely apologetic, as if she can't taste the suffusion of emotions filling the room like a rich wine on the back of her tongue. As if it doesn’t make her head tingle pleasantly or her gentle, golden touch tighten delicately in his mind in reflex response.

"That's all right." Beverly uncurls her feet from beneath her, putting her own tea down on the coffee table. "You're just in time to save me from a lecture on the proper weather conditions for a successful archaeological dig." She shoots Picard a long-suffering look of amusement, and even Deanna's _oh my god, hush_ doesn't entirely keep Will from smiling.

_Tell me we've never been this oblivious. I'd be ashamed._

_We do have a small advantage or two._ "I'm sure Geordi would be happy to forego the proper safety checks on the new warp drive for you," she says playfully, crossing to the couch as he makes his way to the replicator. "That should cut a few days off the wait."

Picard scowls at her. "Thank you, I should have thought of that."

Deanna laughs. "Always happy to give you the benefit of my engineering expertise."

Even though there's space enough for all three of them if she doesn't, Beverly moves over to let Deanna take the end of the couch. He doesn't have to watch to know she's doing it, or to know it's absolutely intentional, or for his heart to skip just a little faster at the implication.

 _That's up to you._ Deanna's touch is so very gentle in his head, full of understanding - that Jean-Luc Picard is more of a father to him than Kyle Riker will ever be, and Deanna knows better than anyone else how much he relies on that relationship, on this man's trust and affection and respect. She's also as sure as he is what Kyle's reaction would be, even in this day and age, to watching him submit so joyfully to her, and even that would be painful enough.

But Jean-Luc Picard isn't Kyle Riker, and if he can't trust and relax in their Captain's company after twelve years, he's not sure what they're really doing here.

 _I love you._ It's the only answer he needs to give her. That, and - because it's been twelve years and they can all stand a little teasing, and they'll only get to do this once - _besides, it's about time he met my imzadi properly._

It's like kissing her, the way she responds to that, the bright flash of happiness in his head.

"Apparently the monsoon season comes on quickly on Hanoran," Beverly's saying, as he turns back. "If we wait much longer it's going to be a pretty miserable expedition."

"I don't know. I like a good jungle rainstorm. Betazed's glorious in the wet season." He hands Deanna her glass with a smile and the rich, fertile, loamy scent of Jalara, and she smiles back as her fingertips brush over his.

He didn't intend to do this tonight - but then he didn't intend to with Beverly, either, he just _wanted_ so loudly that Deanna wasn't going to keep quiet and the next thing he knew, he was on his knees with her fingers in his hair - and as nervous as he was, and as incredible as it felt, it felt natural, too, like finally going home and taking one of their best friends with them.

He can't remember right now if Picard has ever been to Betazed as anything more than a tourist.

There's an empty space easily comfortable enough for him on the couch between Deanna's knees and Beverly's thigh, where she's balancing her tea with one hand. He ignores it, leans down to set his glass of ale on the floor - suddenly he feels hot and light-headed, like he can smell that humid jungle air…

 _Look at me._ Deanna's voice is a steadying pressure in his head. He does, and even though he can feel the faint, stage-fright nervousness in her too, there's an impish sparkle in her eyes.

He only takes his gaze from hers to look at Beverly, and grin. "Thanks," he says, in a tone deliberately aimed to make her blush red - feels the Captain's quizzical look and Deanna's bright peal of laughter - and then he goes to his knees, relaxing into it effortlessly and just for good measure, tips his head forward enough that it's an obvious request even if only Deanna can hear the words. _T'e elar._ Because he does, he wants this, and that he's actually going to get it…

 _Imzadi._ Her fingertips brush his neck, tease into the ends of his hair, and he tilts his head back again into her touch with a smile he wouldn't be able to hold in if he tried.

"Look up," Deanna laughs, and he does.

Jean-Luc Picard has definitely never lived on Betazed.

Beverly's laughing so hard it's almost silent, with a hand over her mouth and her gaze fixed on Picard: Will catches her eye and she takes a breath, sobers herself enough to get out, "Oh god, I'm sorry, it's not _funny_ , it's just -" and then she's laughing again and he's grinning with her because the look on the Captain's face…

Deanna presses her thumb into the side of his neck. Her decadent amusement sparkles inside him. "Don't worry, Captain." She sounds like she does at home, like her mother's daughter. "He's still yours when he's on duty," and Beverly loses it all over again and actually pulls her knees up to her chest to keep from doubling over with laughter.

Picard has forged a career from appearing calm under pressure, but there's a stunned look around his eyes and he's staring at Deanna's hand like it's a live snake wrapped around Will's neck. "The two of you," he says, very slowly. "Am I to understand that..." He clears his throat. "That this is how you, ah, wish to… conduct your relationship now?"

He chuckles: he can't help it. It gets him a playful squeeze of Deanna's fingers and a sudden look of consternation from Picard.

"Will," Deanna murmurs, even though he can feel her own amusement.

"Sorry. 'Now' just threw me."

Picard's voice is just a little strained. "What do you - _when_?"

He grins, broad and bright and carefree. "Like I said, Captain; Betazed's a glorious place."

A still-giggling Beverly leans across and puts her hand on Picard's wrist; the flash of reaction from them both, vicarious through Deanna's senses, sends a faintly sensual warmth through him that goes over and above the softly throbbing heat already under his skin.

"Oh, Jean-Luc." Beverly squeezes his arm and then lets go, leaning back to shoot Deanna a grin. "I've never seen him _look_ like that," she says, and Deanna grins back at her. Only Will knows it's not just in answer to the words.

"Captain." Her fingertips are smoothing the ends of his hair: that touch that probably looks idle, if sensual, but feels like the physical embodiment of the connection between them. "You do trust me, don't you?"

Picard's instant gut reaction, even filtered through her mind, is so certain it makes him almost burst with pride. "With my life."

Deanna smiles. "Then you can trust me with Will's, I promise."

There's wonder, or something like it, in how Picard looks at her then. "Truly since you were both on Betazed?"

"It was early in the wet season, then, too." Deanna's voice is light but the memory is in sharp focus, seared into her mind like a red-bronze brand that still shines after all these years. The sound of Jalara around them, so full of life and yet serenely private; the scent of the place and of her and of them; the feel of heavy air, sweat, and warm rain on his skin…

He remembers with her - his own tremulous desire, because he wanted this but he didn't know why, hadn't ever been able to admit it before and hardly believed it could be real. The way she felt, too, having him - of anyone, that it was _him_ \- just give her that much of himself, how it made her terrified and delighted at the same time. He remembers feeling their way through all of it together - remembers the first time it hurt, when he found himself helpless and crying while Deanna held him and it was the best, most honest thing he'd ever felt…

He rests his head on Deanna's thigh, leaning into that echo of pleasure. She slides her fingers up into his hair and he closes his eyes. They don't have to be open for him to feel Picard's eyes on him, or the dazed sort of surprise that's bright silver to Deanna's senses.

 _Imagine how you must look to him._ There's raw, proud pleasure in the words, built from the image of himself, which looks just how he feels - totally relaxed and openly happy to be hers.

He rubs his temple against her thigh. _That's how you make me look._

"Well, I'm happy for you both, of course, if… this… is what you both want…" Picard sounds just a little dazed, too.

"Will," Deanna says, a soft command. He smiles without opening his eyes.

"Yes, imzadi?"

Her hand slides back down to the back of his neck, and a split-second of pain burns deep in his head. _Don't do that unless you really want me to hurt you,_ and he grins, lifts his head and kisses her thigh. Deanna sighs fondly.

"Tell the Captain what you told me," she says, rubbing his neck. "I think he needs to hear it. Probably in Standard," she adds, and he chuckles.

"I'm yours, Deanna. _Miéu'el shé mi. Miéu'el shé mi thaza._ Every single part of me belongs to you." He'd say it every day, every minute, in every language he knows, if she asked.

"Overachiever," she murmurs with a bright smile, and strokes his shoulder. "Well, Captain?"

Picard's smile is real, just wry and rueful. "You'll just have to forgive me, I'm afraid. This may… take some getting used to."

Deanna's voice is like her touch, on his skin and in his mind; calming but amused, happy. "I can send you some reading material, if you like. Beverly found it very enlightening."

"Read _The Dominant Mind_ ," Beverly says, mirthful all over again.

 

*****


	20. Threesome

"Orders are in for Hanoran Two," Will says, when she joins him in the observation lounge on their third day at Starbase.

"Oh?" Deanna leans over to kiss him good morning and slides into the chair beside him. He's been on night shift supervising the tests of the new warp core, and she's both surprised and not at how much she missed having him wrapped around her while she slept.

Will smiles and reaches over to take her hand, squeezing her fingers. "I'd have enjoyed that much more," he says, and she smiles back and pulls his hand to her lips just as the door opens behind him.

"You two are getting positively nauseating," Beverly says, laughter in her voice as she slips into the chair opposite, Geordi crossing behind her and Data seating himself quietly on Deanna's right. Will grins, unrepentant, and brushes his thumb across Deanna's lips before taking his hand back.

The briefing is, just as it should be, brief: their orders are in, to leave for the delayed archaeological expedition in the Hanoran system in forty-eight hours; the new warp core is performing perfectly and should be up to the relatively routine journey; the crew have all had at least one rotation for leave onto the starbase, and the general health of the whole ship is still benefitting from their metaphasic exposure.

Which could be an excuse, if he needed one, for the way Will gently hooks his hand into her elbow as they leave and leans down to murmur, "We've got time before we leave. Want to go out and play tonight?"

 

"I'm not sure how you two aren't being obvious enough," Beverly says, leaning in close to Will's ear, "but someone's watching you. Over at the bar, on the left. The lieutenant with the Romulan ale."

"She's been looking at you for the last hour, Commander," Alyssa giggles, at his arched eyebrow.

_Has she?_

Deanna smirks, at both the question and the innocent idea that the rather attractive lieutenant sipping Romulan ale might have failed to notice the way they've been all over each other from the moment they walked into the bar. Right now her forearm is tucked under his, their palms pressed together and fingers intertwined, and she's leaning close enough to feel his warmth against her shoulder.

_She finds you very attractive._ Given where they are, the mental atmosphere is charged with enough enjoyment and relaxation and sexuality to haze her senses more than a little, but her head is still clear enough to have felt that shaft of particularly carnal emotion pointing their way for a while now.

_What about you?_

She's looked, of course, discreetly, when she noticed. His admirer is around Alyssa's height but Beverly's build, the slender physique of a dancer with long, scarlet, Orion-red hair. Deanna would judge she's a few years her junior, though it's difficult to tell in this light; she looks Human but then, from this distance Deanna probably does, too.

_I wouldn't mind,_ and she fills it with how much she really wouldn't. _I don't think she would either._

Will chuckles and leans close, kissing her hair. She smiles mischievously. "Go find out if she feels like playing, imzadi."

He grins, downs the rest of his drink in one swallow and stands up, leaning in to press his mouth to hers as he pushes his chair back under the table. "Your wish is my command," he murmurs against her lips, and Deanna brushes her fingertips against his cheek.

"Call me," she says, and then he's crossing the room and Alyssa is blushing furiously, slipping out of her seat with a mumble about another drink, and Beverly is staring at her.

"Deanna!"

She has to laugh, because Beverly might be new to some aspects of their relationship but it's a little ridiculous that it's been so many years and they're still having this particular conversation. "Oh, did you want us to come back with you instead?"

" _No!_ " Beverly glares at her, and the soft green of her mind deepens like a Vulcan blush. "I thought you - the both of you - what are you _doing_?"

"Having fun, if she's interested," she says, easily. And laughs again, lightly, at Beverly's expression. "You know Will and I have slept with other people together… Oh, I see. You thought we wouldn't need to any more, if we're officially together, is that it?"

Beverly's glare turns softer, a little petulant. "There's such a thing as having _too much_ fun, you know."

She smirks. "Is there?" Beverly rolls her eyes; she laughs. "Beverly, it's only sex, and if someone's interested…" She flashes a conspiratorial smile. "Well, we're very good at it. We've never left anyone unsatisfied, I can promise you that."

"This is definitely not fair," Beverly mutters, with a playful pout, and Deanna smiles and leans over and brushes a light kiss against her lips.

"You could be having your own fun, remember. If you decide not to, well, you always know where we are." Will sends her a shaft of gleeful anticipation - _the answer is hell, yes_ \- and she grins. "Now, if you'll excuse me, it seems I've got somewhere to be."

 

Being in crew quarters on the _Venture_ is even more like going back in time than the Briar Patch, though Deanna does wonder if they've made the beds bigger.

Will grins down at her over their latest lover's naked shoulder, that mix of heat and laughter in his eyes. _Ready?_

_Whenever you are._ She reaches up and tangles her fingers in long red hair, pulling just a little and feeling for the reaction - a faint pulse of arousal that grows louder as she pushes herself up onto her elbows and claims that soft, hot mouth again. Will strokes his hands back down the pale naked skin pressed between them and takes a hold of the hips starting to rock against hers, gently tugging back.

She feels it as he pushes in - a hot carnal pleasure, the fruition of that first glance across the crowded bar, in the sound moaned into her mouth and the shudder of the soft body pressed down against her. Will's own pleasure vibrates through her and she hums, smiling, strokes her own hands down to find his. Their fingers meet and intertwine and the moan into her mouth is louder as they start to move, in perfect synchrony, and she presses her leg up in just the right place so that every thrust he makes rocks that wet, hot clit right onto her thigh.

Will slips his fingers from hers and reaches forward; she doesn't have to see his hands to know when they start to tease, she can feel it in the rising, desperate pleasure and the breathy moans she's still swallowing in slow, messy kisses. They don't need to talk, to do this so well, and it's so easy - to feed Will what she's feeling, to guide him with subconscious touches and share in his pleasure in return, gently holding it back for him when he needs to just last a little longer…

Hands dig into her hair and she can't help making soft sounds of her own, sharing the raw burst of pleasure as the woman in her arms comes hard and shaking on Will's cock, under his hands. He groans even though she's still holding him on the edge - and then she lets go and he's coming, too, rough and loud and pulling her with him. Then she's the one being kissed breathless by the woman between them, until they finally all relax into a mess of exhausted, boneless limbs and panting gasps, and only moments pass until they start all over again.

They don't stay the night, but that wasn't the intention; they do say goodbye with soft kisses, and leave a very sated and satisfied woman behind when they go. It's late to call for a transport and expect someone to be on duty, so Will takes her hand as they walk.

_I guess we've still got it._ There's a hot, pleased and very tired grin in the words.

She smiles and stretches up to kiss him. _I didn't doubt it for a moment._

 

*


	21. Shower/Bath

He still can't put his finger on why _now_ : whether the Briar Patch really turned back time between them and this is just how it would have been if he'd never left, or whether they were almost here anyway and it just gave them the push they needed.

Mostly, he's just not worrying about it. It's difficult to be worried about anything when he's dozing on Deanna's warm, wet, naked shoulder, her legs wrapped around him under a cloud of bubbles and her hand stroking idly up and down his chest as she sips from the cold glass of wine they're sharing.

They've shared enough baths and showers together for enough reasons that he lost count years ago, but there's still something particularly indulgent about candlelight and warm bubbles and wine, even without the addition of the straight razor that still sends a flutter of arousal through him when he thinks about it.

Deanna smiles warmly in his head, reaching back to put the glass down. _Are you sure you don't want to do that again?_

He chuckles, without opening his eyes. _It's tempting._

She wraps her arms around him, scratches her fingernails lightly through the wet hair on his chest. _Mmm… it doesn't have to be the beard, if you'd rather keep that._

 _It doesn't quite have the same effect,_ he thinks, somewhat apologetic. As much as he'd be happy to let her shave whatever parts of him she likes, there's something about having a naked blade on his neck that appeals to the thrill-seeker in him. Particularly if it's in Deanna's hand.

_Is it the blade, or just the danger, do you think?_

He thinks about it - the touch of cold, sharp metal, the gentle pressure and the scrape of the blade across his skin… but the primal feeling of it, too, of baring his neck to her and knowing he's entirely at her mercy, just one press harder or one little flick of her hand...

_A little of both, I guess._

Deanna tilts her head and kisses the side of his neck, with a soft flick of her tongue. He grins. _Mmm, that's good, too, you know._

 _Good._ She kisses his ear. _I'd get the razor, but I'm too comfortable._

 _Mmm. So'm I._ He'd happily just spend the night here, surrounded by warm candlelight and water with Deanna's mind and body wrapped all around him. _Maybe later?_

 

He thinks he might have gone mad, to want this, to feel the way he feels right now - but if he has, he's not sure he wants to be sane.

Deanna's smile is as bright as the razor blade in her hand. He doesn't know how she's holding it so steady but he's very glad she is, when he knows where that blade is going to go…

"Come here," she says, playful and sultry from where she's settled like his own personal goddess at the head of the bed, naked and leaning comfortably back into the piled pillows with that smile on her face.

He obeys without hesitating, crossing to join her on the bed. Deanna spreads her thighs and reaches out to take his left hand in hers, pulling him back between her legs just the way they were both tempted to stay in the tub, at least until the water got too cold and the wine too warm.

He leans back comfortably against her and Deanna wraps her arm around his chest, pressing a warm kiss to his shoulder. He can't see the razor but he knows it's there in her other hand, and that the dermal regenerator is sitting on the dresser within her reach, and it doesn't help his slowly rising heartbeat that he's not completely sure what she's going to do…

"Trust me," she murmurs, soft and tender in his ear. He closes his eyes, tips his head to the side and back against her shoulder, baring the line of his neck -

The brush of her lips, and then her tongue, right on the throbbing point of his pulse, sends a shiver through him; he feels her smile, and her fingers splay and press against his chest.

"Do you want me to hold you still?"

 _Fuck_ , the thought of that - because he knows from that tone exactly what she means, and it can feel _so_ good, but if she slipped into his head right now and took even that control away, with a _blade_ in her hand -

"No." He takes a slow, deep breath. "No, I can… I'm good."

"As long as you're sure. I don't want to hurt you," but there's a smile in her voice and her teeth nip gently at the shell of his ear. "Too much, anyway.”

The rough, playful way she says that goes right to his cock. He swallows hard. " _Deanna…_ "

"Shh." Her hand strokes down his chest, slow and teasing with a gentle scratch of her nails, and he has to take a deep, sudden breath in to keep from shivering again when he's promised he can stay in control. It's a close thing, _so_ close, when she starts to run her nails up and down the length of his cock - he bites down on his lip and groans, arching his neck tighter, fisting his hands in the sheets, _anything_ to keep still…

It feels like an eternity until Deanna's gentle, proud pleasure beats inside his head, and he hears himself whimper with gratitude as she takes pity and just wraps her hand around him, nuzzling into his neck. "Mmm, well done," murmured into his ear, and he groans, breathless already.

"Imzadi," he gets out, and then, "ah, oh, _oh_ …" because now there's just her fingertips, pressing and rubbing and squeezing, just firm enough - goddamn her, she knows him so well - right where he's so sensitive it's almost impossible not to twitch and shudder in her hand.

Deanna kisses his ear, murmurs, "Breathe," and he does, tries to keep it slow and steady, tries to focus on that and not the way she's massaging the head of his rock-hard cock with her fingers, not how much he wants to beg for more or the tension burning in his thighs. He's starting to tremble with the effort of holding still, and then Deanna wraps her whole hand around him again and starts to stroke, long and slow and twisting.

" _Oh_ , god..." She's always so good at this - she's in his head with every stroke of pleasure, he can feel her, hot and golden, and it feels so good -

"Keep still," Deanna whispers in his ear, and the flat of the razor blade, cold and hard and sharp, presses very gently against his neck.

In a single moment he stops breathing, goes utterly still - and then Deanna presses just a little harder and he can feel his own pulse beating against the blade and she’s still stroking him and it's such a heady, hot mix of need and pleasure and terror that he's coming without knowing it's going to happen, even the threat of drawing blood suddenly not enough to keep him from fucking desperately into her hand.

Deanna pulls the blade away and then it's just her mouth on his neck, hot and wet, her tongue and the soft scrape of her teeth against his skin while he sobs and comes hard all over her hand, stars sparking behind his eyes and his chest heaving because he just can't get enough air.

 _Shh, shh, breathe._ He can feel her wonder and delight and pleasure all tangled up with his own; it's so much that it's all he can do to move at all, even just enough to curl onto his side in her arms and press his face into her neck, still twitching, trying to do as he's told. Her hand goes to the back of his neck and holds him there, Deanna wrapping her whole self back around him. _Shh, Will, shh._

 _Fuck,_ he thinks, because he doesn't have anything coherent left, and he's not convinced he won't still pass out any second. _That was just…_

 _I know. I felt it._ Deanna strokes his hair. _You are amazing, imzadi._

 _I'm crazy,_ he thinks, and she laughs - not entirely steady herself, now - quietly in his ear.

"Maybe."

He chuckles, exhausted, but he manages to lift his head enough and then he's kissing her, hot and soft and sweet, if more than a little shaken. "I love you," breathing it into her mouth, "Deanna, imzadi," _I love you, so much…_

 _I know,_ and she does, and that's the most beautiful feeling he's ever had. _So, I guess we’ll keep the razor handy?_

He presses his face back against her neck and shudders. _Hell, yes, please._

 

*


	22. Collaring

The new warp core is pronounced fit and ready six hours ahead of schedule, thanks to the usual miracle work from Geordi's team, so they're on their way to the Hanoran system at warp six by the time Will finishes his shift. He even gets to trade the bridge to a happy Captain, who's already reading up on the ancient Hanor dynasties by the time Will heads for the turbolift.

_You feel happy, too,_ Deanna thinks, pleased, as he heads toward her quarters. He smiles.

_We're ahead of schedule, the engines are purring like a kitten, the Captain's practically got his shovel in hand already, and I've got the night free with the most gorgeous woman on the ship. What's not to be happy about?_

Her own cheerfulness washes like warm sunlight through his mind, tinged with a hint of enigmatic teasing. _I've got something for you, too._ He pushes, playfully, and she laughs. _Oh no, none of that. You'll find out when you get here._

When he walks into her quarters five minutes later, there are two steaming bowls of Andorian pasta and a tall glass of Trakian ale on the dining table, and a small, standard Betazed-style shipping container on the couch.

"Hi." Deanna smiles warmly at him, coming out of the bedroom with a glass of her own. She's already out of uniform, barefoot in that flowing purple nightgown he finds so stunning on her: he grins at the sight and holds out a hand, catching her fingers and pulling her in close.

"Hi." He leans down to steal a soft kiss. "Mmm. Good day?"

Deanna grins, pulling out her chair. "Considering I should have been preparing for crew evaluations this week, it was almost relaxing. I nearly took a nap in my office."

He chuckles, takes the chair beside her. The ale is still chilled and pleasantly refreshing when he takes a long sip. "Mmm, well, I'm glad that worked out so well." The pasta is a recipe he recognises, one of his favorites too, rich and slightly spicy. He thinks it because his mouth is too full to talk out loud; _Are you going to tell me why you're spoiling me tonight?_

Deanna takes a bite of her own. _Do I need a reason?_

He grins, reaching over for her hand. _No, but you've got one._

She smiles mysteriously and glances over at the couch. He follows her gaze, and there's the taste of that particular kind of anticipation in her mind that gives her away - on purpose, he's sure - even without her having to speak, out loud or otherwise.

He swallows and takes another mouthful of ale, because his mouth is suddenly a little dry. " _Oh._ "

Deanna squeezes his fingers. "They arrived in the last resupply from the starbase this morning. I thought you probably wouldn't want to know while you were on the bridge."

He smiles dryly. "You're probably right. I might have interrupted your nap."

Her own smile is full of amusement and that quiet happiness around another mouthful of pasta. "Mm," _maybe I should have called you after all,_ but they both know she's teasing. _Are you sure you still want to -_

He tightens his grip on her hand, to stop her, so that he can open his mind even wider than usual and give her the answer in the best way he can. _Yes,_ the word full of how much he wants this: not just because it's erotic as all hell even to just _imagine_ , but because even that pales in comparison to how it makes his heart feel - just so incredibly right, natural, so glad to commit himself to her this way. He's always been perfectly Starfleet on the surface and hers underneath - now he's ready to be a little more visibly hers, too. _Do you -_

Her answer isn't even a word - just pure, unbridled joy that makes him warm all over and drowns the question completely, brings a broad smile to his face. It's not that they've ever hidden their relationship, but it's always been something intensely private between them in a lot of ways: there are parts of what they are to each other that have always been easier to not explain, if only because it would shift most people's perceptions further than they'd have been comfortable with until now.

_Until now._ Deanna leans into his mind and squeezes his fingers before taking her hand back, and only then because she can't eat left-handed.

He smiles and leans back in return, and it's easy for it to turn playful - light, teasing touches and soft caresses without even needing to reach across the table between them at all.

Two empty bowls later, they're trading slow, lazy kisses in front of the replicator while it conjures up a chocolate sundae and two cups of a particularly luxuriant coffee blend, and they don't stop until a long time after the tell-tale sound of materialisation is finished. It's Will who finally drags himself away from her mouth, though only by a thin thread of self-control, and even then he can't resist a quick, parting brush of lips.

"I'm gonna take a shower. I won't be too long."

Deanna picks up her sundae with a smile. "Okay."

 

Even a sonic shower is invigorating as well as cleansing after spending the whole day in uniform: he flicks on the water for a few minutes just for the luxury of it, towels himself off and slips into a pair of loose pyjama pants before padding back into the living room. The lights are lower, evidence of dinner cleared away; when he looks at the coffee table, the shipping crate is gone too and in its place are two square storage boxes, plain black aside from the digital lock on one corner.

Deanna is sitting comfortably on the couch, sundae dish empty on the table, sipping her coffee and watching the stars. He stops, for a moment, and just looks at her, just because he can, because he's that extraordinarily lucky and he's never not going to make the most of it.

_Imzadi._

Deanna looks away from the window and gives him a soft smile, and he actually feels his heart skip in his chest. It's that image, how she looks and feels right now, that makes him unsure why anyone is surprised that he worships this woman with everything he is.

Deanna laughs, soft and slightly self-deprecating. He raises an eyebrow. "What?"

She shakes her head, holding out her hand. "Nothing. I just… remembered something Mother said to me, once."

He grins. "Oh?"

She rolls her eyes playfully, but her voice is fond with the memory. "She asked if my father was ever unhappy with how she treated him. She was making a point," and he smiles with her as he kneels, reaching out as she puts her mug down to pull her hand to his lips.

"And?" He kisses the back of her fingers. "Was he?"

"No." The fondness in her voice deepens; he can feel it, warm and thick like a familiar blanket. "He worshipped her," and that's what makes him smile and kiss her palm, without taking his gaze from hers.

_The way I worship you?_

She turns closer to him, runs her fingers gently through his hair, and this time the thickness in her voice is love and happy tears. "I think so. Yes."

It's not the first time he wishes he'd met Ian Troi, and it probably won't be the last - he's going to spend the rest of his life with the man's daughter, after all - but it's sharp for a moment, in her mind as well as his. He pushes up on his knees and takes her face gently in both hands and kisses her, as much to wash that sudden pain away as to give her just another reminder that it's not sophistry or flippancy when he uses that word - that how he feels is closer to worship than any other way to explain it, at least in any language that isn't hers.

"She said you'd feel that way, too," Deanna murmurs, stroking her fingertips down his cheek. He raises an eyebrow again. "That you'd bless me for wanting you like this."

"Smart woman, your mother." She laughs wryly, and he grins shamelessly back at her. "I've always said that," though he laughs it as she gives him a playful mental shove.

"I'm almost expecting to find a note from her," she admits, in a half-serious whisper almost as if the woman in question might hear. He's not _entirely_ sure she can't. "I can't quite believe she didn't find out I was having them made."

"We should probably find out," he says, and he really means it to be playful in return but his voice sounds a little raw, and the words taste hot on his tongue.

Deanna takes a deliberately deep breath, takes his hand again, and taps the lock on each box in turn.

Inside, both boxes are identical: expensive black Betazoid silk, holding a single collar and two smaller cuffs, and he knows he doesn't imagine Deanna's breath catching along with his.

One is almost ornate - soft black leather, an inch wide, edged in the exact deep red of his uniform and inlaid with a thin band of metal, engraved with Cyndri script, that widens into the flat metal closure he can almost feel against the back of his neck already. The other is simple but stunning - an unbroken torus of that same smooth, dark metal, a gunmetal grey so dark there are hints of midnight blue in the way the light hits it when he picks it up. It's cool against his skin, lighter than it looks, and it takes touch rather than sight to find them but he can feel the two places where it comes apart, either side of the perfect circle.

Deanna puts her hands over his and moves his fingertips very slightly, presses them against the inside of the metal - and it breaks apart smoothly in his hand, falling open on a hidden hinge.

He looks up at her and she's smiling. "You do need to be able to take these off, if you're going to wear them when I’m not there." She picks up the two smaller bands, shaped to comfortably fit his wrists, and this time it's the pressure of her fingers that opens them both. "I had them locked to your DNA pattern and mine."

"No one else." He wonders if he should sound nervous, when it just comes out hopeful, even relieved. Deanna smiles.

"Not even Beverly, so don't go getting yourself hurt unless I'm around."

"I'll do my best." He realises he's stroking the metal, gently, almost absently, and suddenly his heart is pounding like a drum because this is it, he's holding a collar in his hands that means he's _hers_ , always, visibly and without question.

"You can still say no," Deanna says, and she might sound calm but he can feel what she's feeling, too, and it's just as deep and intense and overwhelming.

He puts the collar down, carefully, and only to take her hands in both of his. "No, I can't," but he offers her a smile, gives her the meaning he doesn't have words for out loud. "This is how I feel, Deanna. I'm yours." He presses his lips back into her palm, holding her gaze, reaching along those bright golden threads that always lead his mind to hers. _I was always yours._

_Will..._ It's about as unsteady as he's ever heard her, but only with _so much_ feeling it's just impossible to control it, even for her. He squeezes her hands tightly, pressing all the strength and love and surety he has into her mind.

"It's okay," he says, and Deanna laughs, softly.

"Aren't I supposed to be the one saying that to you right now?"

He grins. "When have we ever done what we're supposed to?"

She laughs again, louder, and it sparkles in her eyes, and this is everything he wants his life to be - being right here with her, on this ship, out among the stars, making her laugh like that.

He sits back on his heels and puts the open collar in her hands, covering them with his, and he leaves his mind wide open for her to feel everything, for her to know this is all love and there's no fear in him at all when he thinks the words that come so easily now. _Miéu'el shé mi thaza, imzadi. Always._

He's never seen her eyes so dark, or her smile so beautiful.

_I love you,_ and it's like a hot, summer sun inside him, feeling how true and deep that is. He's fairly sure her hands would be shaking if he weren't holding them. _I love you_ , her fingers brushing lightly against his neck as she reaches forward, cool metal coming to rest against his skin; he lifts his chin, grins at her like the lovesick fool he was at twenty-two and hasn't ever stopped being, really, underneath it all. _I love you, imzadi, miéu'el di shé, I love you, I've always loved you,_ and the collar locks closed at the exact moment she leans in and kisses him, soft and slow and full of promise.

 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](http://eternitycollars.com/necklaces/black-collar) is Will's day collar. Good for under a uniform. ;) The play collar is a cross between [this](https://www.vonbondage.com/black-leather-bondage-collars/red-trim-leather-bdsm-day-choker-small-dee-ring), [this](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/516399531/leather-necklace-choker-bdsm-submissive) and [this](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/156181191/slave-collar-personalized-engraved-for?ref=shop_home_active_15). (By the 24th century they all lock biometrically, obviously.)


	23. Against a Wall

She wakes up to the warm, sweet feeling of Will's open adoration filling her mind and his fingertips running lightly up and down her forearm: when she opens her eyes, sleepy and smiling, he's lying beside her with his head propped on one hand and watching her with a half-awake smile of his own. The room is barely lit yet, but her eyes are still drawn instantly to the dark metallic shine of the collar around his neck, the way the light slides across the matching bond around his wrist as he strokes her skin.

 _Hi._ She stretches lazily, reaching out more just to touch him than to stop that feather-light caress. Will's smile widens; he leans over and kisses her, just as soft and just as sweet, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. She slides her hand behind his neck, melts into his arms and kisses him back. _Well, good morning to you, too._

 

She's finishing her morning coffee and checking over her schedule when Will comes out of the bedroom ready for his bridge shift… or all but ready, and the intent would be subtle to anyone who isn't an empath, or in anyone she didn't know as well as him.

She smiles and puts her PADD down on the desk. Will flashes her a grin and crosses the room in an easy stride, cups his palm against her cheek, tilts his head down and presses his mouth to hers.

"Mmm…" She rests a hand over his heart, beating quiet and calm in the warmth of his chest, and leans back to look up at him, still smiling. "Poker tonight?"

"At Beverly's." He takes the cup out of her hands. She strokes her hands up to his neck, to the all but invisible line of the collar he's still wearing: there's a hot, bright flare of desire and joy in his mind when she touches it, even through the fabric of his uniform.

"Is it going to bother you?"

Will smiles wryly. "It's gonna distract me, I'll give you that."

There's just a sliver of dark metal visible at the still-open neck of his shirt: she touches it with a fingertip. "Good," just gently mischievous, and then she’s closing the fabric over it, straightening his uniform a little until she’s satisfied.

Will gives her an indulgent grin. "Are you on the bridge today?"

She slides her hand back down to rest in the center of his chest and takes her coffee back. "A little later."

He grins brighter. "Can’t wait."

 

It turns out that he really can’t – and nor can she, three appointments later, when she steps onto the bridge and Will is in the center chair, examining something on his console.

"Hi." He smiles at her as she approaches, easy and professional, as if he isn't bound entirely to her, as if he didn't spend last night with his head between her thighs until neither of them could breathe. "Can I see you for a minute?"

She smiles back, as if her fingers don't ache from being hooked through the cuffs around his wrists, as if she hasn't been longing to be in the same room with him since the second he left her quarters that morning. "Sure."

They're only in the observation lounge for moments when Will turns and kisses her - hard, deep, needing, his mind seeking hers with insistent heat.

 _A little distracted?_ She teases it, but gently. It's such an incredible feeling to know he’s still wearing the bonds that show he's hers under that perfect uniformed officer exterior, and she can't even feel the metal on her skin – she can’t blame him for being a little overwhelmed. She definitely is.

 _Let me,_ she murmurs, and Will feels exultant and grateful, his hands brushing down her back and pulling her close enough to feel his heart beating.

Slipping into his mind is always so simple, most of the time she's not even aware she's doing it, and she can almost always find a way to do what he needs. He doesn't have to tell her in words why today it's different, harder than it has been for years, to focus his thoughts away from her: but even supplementing his usual control with her own isn't going to help that, not when the feeling of it will just make it harder… Especially because if they weren't on duty - and she can't hide that it's a thin line keeping her, too, from breaking that promise they made to each other a decade and more ago - then she'd be pushing him up against the wall, sinking to her knees and into his mind all at once, going so deep he'd come even before she took him in her mouth -

"Deanna…" Her name is a plea, helpless and so very close to that line she can taste it. She winces, pushes that thought away and presses her hand over his heart.

"Sorry," but she can't help smiling, even apologetically. "I'm not feeling exactly in control right now, either."

Will smiles, too, then covers her hand with his and tilts his head down and kisses her again - but deliberately, carefully patient, and her smile turns tender against his lips. She strokes his hair and kisses him back just as gently, pulling into focus that calm, unwavering adoration that woke her so sweetly: it helps, both of them, quiets that very mutual desire into something softer and even soothing.

Will's smile is even a little euphoric when he finally lets her go. She's aware her own is probably the same, and she doesn't care at all.

 

She's proud of them both - they last until approximately six minutes after the end of alpha shift, two and a half seconds after the turbolift doors close behind them. She's not sure who breaks first, only that she reaches up to pull his mouth to hers as Will shoves her against the side of the lift, and he barely gets the words, "Computer, halt turbolift," out before the dam breaks with sudden, dramatic heat and they're kissing, just as hungry and impatient as each other.

The wall is hard but solid against her back: she's probably going to hurt later if they do this, here, but that just makes the thought even more appealing.

Will grins into her mouth and drags his head back, against the pressure of her hand, if only for a moment. "Definitely distracted," and then he’s kissing her neck, his hands stroking down her sides to frame her waist and lift her up.

She wraps her legs around him, and then her weight is completely held between his hips and the wall of the turbolift and Will growls playfully into her neck.

 _It's been years since we did this,_ she thinks, laughing.

 _I don't know why._ He grinds his hips against hers, teeth grazing her skin, making her moan quietly under her breath at the dual sensation. Will would quite clearly love to be inside her right now, and she's not sure if just being in his head will be enough -

"Whatever you want." He nibbles her earlobe; his breath is hot and already slightly fast against her skin. _Besides, don’t you know I've always loved this the most?_

She does know that, if she thinks about it for even a moment. How he's always been captivated by having her in his mind, feeling her touch in every most intimate part of him, having her invisible fingerprints all over his thoughts and on his soul. How any decent telepath would see he belongs to her - would have seen it for years now, long before she put a collar around his neck.

Will presses her harder against the wall, nuzzling at her neck, his beard tickling her skin. _So take what's yours, however you want it._

He knows what he's suggesting, what she wants - Will can read her just as easily as she can him, after all. He knows that this is what's always made the difference for her: what makes loving him so special, the way his mind and soul fits so perfectly to hers and all she needs to do is just…

 _Mmm…_ He shudders as she enters that deepest part of his mind, like pressing her fingers inside him, sensual and smooth; dark molten bronze heat floods through her head in answer and Will groans, raw pleasure welling up wherever she touches. _Oh, yeah, like that -_ when she presses harder, pulling him into her in equal turn. _Deanna…_

It's so _easy._ He's so open to her, pushing back into her mind, so wanting and eager - she hardly has to feel for the right place to touch, for that primal source of feeling where it's so intense that even a brush of thought will feel good enough to hurt.

 _How much do you want?_ He's still holding her up; she's almost afraid he won't be able to, if she's as forceful as she'd like to be. She knows he can feel her, waiting, because he trembles and she grips the back of his neck, every muscle tense with the effort. _Tell me, Will, I need -_

"Do it," he gasps in her ear, and then "oh _fuck, Dea-_ " the moment she presses, _hard,_ and his voice breaks and she knows exactly - it's beyond orgasmic, indescribable, pure pleasure stripped bare with nothing physical to get in the way. It's all sensation, a white nova behind her eyelids and the bright burn of so much pure feeling in her head - the weight of Will's body trapping her against the wall, his hands digging bruises into her hips and his teeth on her neck - the way he grinds helplessly against her and comes almost as an aftershock, their minds so deeply entangled that she can't keep from joining him and she'd never want to when it feels like _this_.

 

It's definitely Will who snaps the instant they're in his quarters, still unsteady on his feet even as he pushes her up against the wall beside the door and gets his hand inside her uniform and fucks her with his fingers, hard and fast, swallowing the desperate sounds she makes in the most thorough and breathless of kisses.

She's come again twice before she even gets his uniform open, and then it's Will who's making the most beautiful, desperate noises of his own, with his head tilted back against the wall and his hard, aching cock in her mouth and hands. She indulges herself completely, holds him there with nothing but her mind and just licks and sucks and strokes and bites until he comes fiercely enough to bring him to his knees, sobbing out her name and sliding down the wall to pull her close.

They're curled naked in Will's bed when the poker game starts, with his fingers moving on her skin, hers playing with the back of his collar and the ends of his hair: both of them finally just gentle all over again. Deanna's fairly certain that Beverly will understand, when she hears the details.

 

*


	24. Exhibitionism / Voyeurism

They're just in time: the rains haven't quite set in, at least as far west in the Hanoran rainforest as the ruined cluster of cities that so interests the archaeological and xenolinguistics teams - and Jean-Luc Picard. From orbit the storms are visibly rolling in, but the long-term team already on the planet have protective force fields in place to keep at least the main site mostly dry, and climate-controlled shelters enough to protect them away from the ruins. Work is well underway on shipping the additional science equipment they've brought even before he gets a chance to tie up his logs and paperwork and head for the surface.

He's lucky that Will is in such a good mood lately: he's only given a stern warning about not falling into any excavations or waking any ghosts, instead of the usual rote argument about his joining an away mission, and an hour later Will is hopping up onto the pad beside him with just a grin.

He does have a moment's chagrin when he materialises: the air is heavy, humid, and it must be at least ten degrees hotter than the _Enterprise -_ instantly uncomfortable for wearing full uniform the way he is. He leans down to pick up his bag and sweat breaks out across his body, trickling down his spine.

It's only then that he looks at Will and realises his first officer is not only still grinning, eyes full of mischief, but hasn't even beamed down in his uniform jacket or shirt. Instead his arms are bare, communicator pinned to the grey of his sleeveless undershirt.

"Not my first jungle expedition," he says, flashing that grin, and holds out a hand. "Let me take that," and Picard should probably protest, but he's looking at Will's outstretched hand and for a moment his mind is blank.

It's at least thirty-five degrees and as tropical as a sauna, so Will's made himself as comfortable as possible within the bounds of uniform - and yet there are seamless bands of dark grey-blue metal flush around both of his wrists, positioned just far enough up that his shirt would always hide them, if he wore it. And around his neck -

Instantly his mind is full of questions he just can't make himself ask. How long have they been there? What do they mean? Is there a purpose beyond simply having them visible?

"You should probably only ask if you really want to know," Will says, in a voice that's almost gentle with understanding, a smile in his very blue eyes. "Shall we?"

 

Doctor T'Stara advises him that the expedition is proceeding within acceptable timescales, even given their delay in arriving, and provides him with map files of the entire area should he wish to see for himself. She also advises him that the surrounding wilderness contains no particular dangers but to hike out sooner rather than later, if he'd like to explore any of it before the first monsoon arrives.

He spends the next few hours visiting the local ruins, ensuring that the additional equipment brought by the _Enterprise_ is being successfully deployed, and introducing himself to the long-term expedition team, who all seem pleasantly surprised to have the captain of their resupply ship take such a personal interest in their work and are happy to show him some of the finds they've already made. Even the Starfleet personnel are working stripped down to shorts and sleeveless shirts; the ruins are shaded enough by wide, towering trees to avoid the need for excessive sun protection, but the heat and humidity makes him definitely see the wisdom in their approach.

He loses track of everyone from the _Enterprise_ after a few hours - the site is impressively large - but his bag has been left in one of the shelters, so he doesn't need to find Will to change into his off-duty clothes and prepare for a late afternoon hike.

The bubbly Doctor Shutan recommends the area to the south; it shows the best conditions for a quiet walk, with a network of shallow streams, level terrain and flora dense enough to shade the sun yet sparse enough on the ground not to be an obstacle. He wanders through the trees, over moss-covered loamy ground, tricorder in hand; simply enjoying the sights and sounds of such abundant nature, so different to being aboard ship and even to the cool meadowland and rocky mountains of the Ba'ku planet.

He's a few miles out when he wonders if he's stumbled across someone else's walking route, too - he's not on a broken trail by any means, but here and there are the subtle indications of something roughly Human sized passing through with intent, perhaps fairly recent. Still, he is close to a babbling stream, a natural path of least resistance through the undergrowth, so it's perhaps not so surprising -

"Has he really got a _year_ of shore leave stored up?"

He blinks. He left Will back at the expedition headquarters, hours ago -

"I'm not sure why you're surprised," and that's Deanna's voice, soft and laughing. "How much have _you_ got coming to you?" And then she laughs again, without even a reply. "Exactly."

"Well, if you feel like taking a trip home…"

Their voices are coming from somewhere off to his left, where the stream deepens and curves between a thick stand of trees. He closes his tricorder and follows the sound -

"Are you sure you're ready for that?"

"Hmm… I can handle your mother."

"It's Chandra I'm thinking of..."

"Oh, god," there's something tight in Will's voice. "Mmm… oh hell, Miari will probably be able to read my mind by now, too."

Deanna sounds tender, playful. "I'd tell you it's not too late…"

"It was too late the moment I saw you," Will says - it sounds raw, honest, and he slows his pace just enough to give them that private moment - a moment that makes him think of the slow beat of a hummingbird's wings, and the soft crackle of leaves in a fire, perhaps one more than the other.

Later he'll wish he'd not been quite so circumspect as to do that, or he'd not be so quiet in his steps now; wouldn't approach so carefully as to not be heard or seen; wouldn't see them without being noticed first. But he does.

His Counselor and confidante is completely nude, wet hair just beginning to curl against her tanned shoulders; her back is almost entirely to him, straddling his equally damp and naked First Officer's hips, in such a position that he would have _no doubt_ at all of what they're doing even if he didn't - oh _dear god -_ have full view of how Will's thick, hard length slides slowly in and out of her body as she rocks back and forth, so decadently, patiently slow…

He should turn back _immediately_. He shouldn't see this, something so private…

The smooth metal around Will's neck and wrists stands out against so much naked skin, and he can't make himself move.

They still have eyes only for each other, as if there's nothing else, as if he's still miles away; Deanna's hands are stroking, gentle, up and down Will's bare chest; his are on her thighs, fingertips rubbing just as light against her skin. He's spent a dozen years spotting those little touches between them, in the corner of his eye; so often he's sure he misses noticing them entirely and sometimes it's blatant and then there's the last few weeks - but he's never quite seen this. It's not simply erotic, it's easy, almost as if they're not touching another person at all -

And then Deanna slips her fingers between the metal and Will's wrists and pulls his hands away from her skin, pushes them up over his head. He can't see her face but he can see how Will reacts, relaxed and submissive with a sudden grin, and the strange mix of gentleness and force in how she leans over him and presses his wrists down into the mossy soil.

"Okay," Will says, something thick in his voice, but something bright, too. "Mmm, whatever you want," and then a laugh; "I remember…"

It sounds nonsense, until he remembers, too - the moment before Deanna says, giving voice to that gentle force, "Out loud, now," and starts a movement of her hips that's far more deliberate, that he doesn't want to recognise but he can't help reacting to, and tries to ignore the faint stir of heat in his groin.

He should leave. He certainly should _not_ let himself feel aroused by the sight of Deanna like this, riding Will's cock in a hard, rising rhythm…

Will groans, definitely out loud, and fists both hands, still pinned above his head by Deanna's weight. His eyes fall closed and his head tips back and Deanna slides the fingers of one hand through both cuffs to hold him down with just that, the other hand stroking down his arm to curl behind his neck.

"Please," comes out of Will's mouth - he's begging and it sounds easy, eager. It sounds like _I love you_. "Please, imzadi…"

"Tell me," Deanna says, and it sounds like _let me help you_ , and Will just opens his eyes and smiles, and it looks exactly as if he's touched her.

"Get inside my head," and he laughs it, like it's just a game between them. " _Mmm,_ yeah, like that -" and Deanna laughs, soft, even as Will screws his eyes shut all over again and makes a sound Picard has never imagined hearing from Will Riker in his life. " _Yeah,_ oh, god -" and then a string of something that could be words but not in anything even close to Standard, something that makes Deanna kiss him hard and open-mouthed before he's even stopped speaking.

He should go. He shouldn't stand here and watch this, watch _them_ like this, the two people who keep his ship running, two of his best and closest friends...

Deanna lifts her head just enough to press her forehead to Will's, and he sees the edge of her smile.  

 

"Oh my god." Beverly's voice sounds strangled even to her own ears. "What did you _do?!_ "

"What _could_ I do?"

"Did they-" She doesn't finish the question - the mortified look on his face and the hot red flush to his cheeks is more than enough answer. "Oh my god," she says, again, because it covers this situation far too well. "And you just-"

"I can only hope that Deanna was too… preoccupied… to notice my, ah… presence."

She feels like he almost said _attention._ It's dangerously close to admitting he was actively paying some, and she feels her stomach flutter like a whole net of butterflies at the thought that he might have, that he might have _liked_ it.

"You can't discipline them, Jean-Luc. If they were off-duty, and miles away from anywhere…" _and I'd do just the same with you, given the chance,_ though she doesn't say the words. She wonders if he can sense where they should fit, in the momentary pause before he shakes his head.

"No, you're right. I don't intend to," he says, quickly enough to allay that worry. "Even if they had been more easily… found," the word comes out slightly strained, "they have both earned more than enough leeway from me, over the years. I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of Betazoid affairs, but it doesn't take the most observant to notice that this change in their relationship seems quite… intense."

She tries not to blush herself and is fairly certain she fails, at least a little. "So I gather."

"You've talked with Deanna about it?"

She nods. "Both of them. Why?" She wonders if she should ask exactly _what_ he saw. "Jean-Luc, if you've got a problem with their relationship, you need to talk to one of them."

"I think _problem_ is rather a strong word." There's a defensive note to his voice. "I am, just, sometimes, finding myself… confused."

She can't help teasing him just a little. "Confused."

"Perplexed. Perhaps… disconcerted."

"I know what the word means." She doesn't need Deanna's empathy to read how this man feels, after all, which is why she dares to take a warning shot. "Do you?"

He winces. "Unsettled, then."

"Ahhh." She wonders if it's Deanna's influence, the proud and sensual confidence she's projecting these last weeks, that makes her say it so boldly; it's certainly Deanna's years of insight into Jean-Luc's psyche that she has in mind. "You don't understand Will giving up that much control."

He clears his throat and reddens and looks away from her. And he wonders why she trounced him at the poker game last night.

She finds herself smiling, and it feels a little like one that should be on Deanna's lips. "I think that's all right, Jean-Luc. No one's asking you to put a collar on." His gaze snaps back to hers and she smirks, realising he's surprised she knows. "Deanna told me he's wearing it." She leans in a little. "You should talk to them, but if you want to talk to me…"

"I couldn't help but see how they feel." He coughs quietly. "How Will feels, in particular."

She's definitely blushing now, but she's still sure it's true. "I'm sure neither of them would mind that, Jean-Luc."

"I'm sure." He smiles wryly. "And yet the thought is still… well, I find myself in something of a paradox."

She wonders how much he’ll admit, or how much she can tease out of him. "You're envious," she says, a little more daring, and the red flush comes back to his cheeks in answer before he even speaks. "Can I tell you a secret?"

The look he gives her is indecipherable. "Always."

"So am I."

Something like trepidation flashes behind his eyes. "You would-"

"Oh god, no." It’s not that the idea is repulsive, so much as she can't imagine being that person. Deanna, and Will, seem to take to it so naturally, like they're just expressing a part of themselves – but then, she supposes that's exactly it. "No, I mean, I'm – I’m happy that they're happy, but I couldn’t..."

"Yes." He sounds so relieved that she understands what he's trying to say. "To have someone, even someone I trust as much as Deanna, take so much…" He doesn't finish the thought, but she's read the books Deanna sent, too, she knows what he's referring to. She reaches over and covers his hand with hers.

"It's perfectly understandable, Jean-Luc. After what you've been through with the Borg, and on Cardassia…" He curls his fingers lightly around hers, and she lets him with a smile. "Deanna would probably be the first to say, it's hardly a surprise that you find letting someone else control you actively unappealing."

"I suppose."

She smiles at his reluctant admission. "I think it's different for them. Will seems to just like having an outlet, somewhere he doesn't get to be in command. And Deanna _is_ Lwaxana's daughter," which makes him wince and laugh all at once. "I wouldn't be surprised if they've been dancing around this for years."

"All the years we've known them, if you believe that."

"It does make sense of a few things, now that I think about it." She laughs at the look on his face. "They're happy, Jean-Luc. I'd say even Will, but I think especially Will. You should have seen him…" She stops, suddenly realising it might be the wrong thing to say - but he raises an eyebrow, obviously curious, and she can't help blushing at the thought of trying to describe it. "Well, when they told me. I don’t think I've ever seen anyone look like that before."

He's silent for a moment and she can't help but wonder what he's thinking; what he's seen out in the jungle; whether it compares to the way Will smiled up at Deanna from the floor of her quarters or how Deanna touched him like he was the most precious thing.

"We should all be so lucky," Jean-Luc says, her own words back to her, with a small smile, and that's when she realises it probably did compare… and that his hand is still so very close to hers. She smiles back.

"I hope so."

 

*


	25. Smiles / Laughter

Even if he didn't feel like he's finally let himself have something he's wanted for years, the way Deanna's been smiling at him for the last two days would make him do a lot more than wearing the collar that's still around his neck, now warm to the temperature of his skin and comfortable, even comforting, instead of so desperately erotic he can hardly stand it.

It would surprise him how quickly he's become used to it, except that nothing about how quickly he and Deanna fit together has ever surprised him. The one place reason has always somewhat failed him is in the connection between them, and these days he's just fine with that.

"You've got that look again," Geordi says. He blinks, realising he's stopped seeing the schematics in front of them, and smiles apologetically.

"Sorry. You were saying?"

"The core's stood up to the trip even better than we expected. We've got the last shakedown diagnostics running for the next twelve hours, but I'd say she's back to full working order." A sly smile sneaks onto Geordi's face. "You and Counselor Troi missed the poker game this week."

He grins, unrepentant. "Sorry about that."

"Apologise to the Captain. Doctor Crusher cleared him out completely."

He chuckles. He has other things he should probably apologise to the Captain for, though he tends to agree with Deanna that Picard could have left, if he'd really wanted to, and perhaps he learned something worth seeing. It's not as if either of them have ever had a problem being watched together - he'd have given the other man an invitation, if he'd thought that would be worthwhile - but if the more relaxed atmosphere of their earlier briefing is anything to go by, a useful accident may have done the trick after all.

"I'll try and make it up to him," he says. Geordi shrugs, with a smile.

"You let him go and dig up ancient ruins for a few days, I think that's probably good enough for him."

"Easy to buy for," Will agrees, reaching for his PADD again. "Anything else for us to run through here?"

"Just the usual." Geordi swings back to the console. "Speaking of gifts, I heard a rumor…"

He arches an eyebrow, grins broadly because he's pretty sure he knows what's coming. "Rumors, on this ship?"

"Only thing faster than warp drive." Geordi glances at him sideways, and there's a sparkle in those oddly blue eyes. "So, is it true?"

He doesn't stop grinning, and he knows it's the look Deanna calls his signature grin, the one that reminds her of a cat with free access to the creamery. "What?" He makes a subtle adjustment to the neck of his uniform with one finger and watches Geordi's eyes dart back to the console. His grin widens. "I haven't heard this rumor."

"Ah - there's a two percent variance in the aft shield alignment," Geordi says, "I'll get someone to look at that," and Will shakes his head, smirking, and looks back at his PADD.

 

"You know you're the number one topic of scuttlebutt right now," Beverly says, smirking over her tea.

"I'd be terribly disappointed in everyone if we weren't," Deanna says, with a teasing smile of her own. It’s rare now that she wishes her friends here were telepathic, but right now she does, just so that she could put the image into Beverly's mind and do it justice: Will stretched out asleep in her bed, peaceful and dreaming, entirely naked but for the slender line of the collar around his neck and the cuffs around his wrists; the sense of calm, contented happiness when he'd reached out for her in his sleep as she slipped back under the covers beside him. She'd happily be the subject of gossip for as long as anyone cares, when that's the other side of the coin.

"How's Will taking it?"

She shrugs. "He's always said it gives the junior officers something to entertain them." There's really no difference in the way people are talking about them now than there has been for years, with the exception of how Will grinning and absently adjusting his uniform now sets off a chain reaction among half the crew.

 _How many are we up to now?_ She thinks it idly, not really expecting an answer if he's busy, but Will's impudence flashes in her mind.

 _Eleven that I noticed, this morning. I never realised Ensign Kellogg can blush like that._ His deep, playful amusement is a sparkling warmth that tickles inside her head. _Geordi's holding out on me, but I'll get him._

 _Shall I find something I need to do in Engineering?_ and she adds the sense of conspiratorial mischief that's bubbling just under the surface of the connection between them.

Will mirrors it and sends her an intimate and very loving kiss, too, his equally buoyant mood sending sparks of bright pleasure with it. She knows how he feels - she's almost constantly on the verge of laughter around other people, too, not just with happiness but with amusement at just how everyone seems to be reacting to the change in their relationship. So many people seem to be so happy for them and yet completely embarrassed about discussing it… and she's not above having fun with that.

"How's the Captain taking it?" she asks, channelling that mischief herself now, and Beverly's head jerks up, her cheeks flushing.

"Oh my god, you _did_ know!"

She smiles innocently, though the look in her eyes probably gives her away easily. "Did we?"

Beverly rolls her eyes and gives her a dirty look. "But you -"

She's not sure if Beverly is about to say _didn't stop_ or _kept going._ It's an interesting psychological choice, if only Beverly would finish the thought. "Well, if we'd stopped it would have been obvious we knew, wouldn't it?"

" _Deanna!_ "

She laughs. "I don't mind being watched. Neither does Will."

"I don't know how you're so nonchalant about all this," Beverly says, shaking her head. She's not fighting the heat in her cheeks, but it's not getting any cooler, either.

Deanna smiles. "I've hardly got anything to be embarrassed about. Do you think I should?"

Beverly smiles back at her, even if it is a little self-conscious. "No, of course not."

"Besides, I think he may even have learned something," and Beverly chokes on her tea. She rolls her eyes, laughing. " _That's_ not what I meant, but if he did, then you're welcome," and this time Beverly actually has to put her cup down she's coughing so hard.

 

Duty never really sleeps on the _Enterprise,_ even when they're supposedly finished for the evening, so Deanna's already curled up comfortably and reading when Will manages to come to bed. He crawls under the sheets and runs his hand down her thigh, leaning in to nip playfully at her neck. Happy warmth floods through his head; Deanna tosses the PADD in her hand onto the dresser and rolls over, slipping her arms around his neck with a playful smile of her own that she presses to his mouth.

"Mmm…" She pushes him down on his back, trailing open-mouthed kisses down his neck. He curls his fingers into her hair and lets his body relax: it's been a long day, but between the cool sheets and Deanna's warm skin, it's really not a hard thing to achieve. His hand is still curled lightly behind her thigh so he tugs her leg up and over his hips, pulling her on top of him. Deanna smiles, runs her hands down his arms to thread their fingers together, then pulls his hands up and presses them back into the pillows either side of his head.

"Stay right there," she murmurs, and he grins.

"Yes, imzadi."

She kisses him for that, playfully but with more than a hint of control in the pressure of her mouth on is. _You're starting to enjoy that far too much._

 _Wish I'd thought of it years ago,_ he thinks back at her, and she bites his lower lip hard enough to make him hum at the sharp tang of it, tugging with her teeth even as she breaks the kiss.

"I don't know why I put up with you," but she's smiling down at him with the kind of love in her eyes, in the tender way her mind touches his, that makes his heart want to just stop in his chest.

"You love me," he says, easily, teasing but true because he can feel it, that constant warm gold haze that blazes up as she slips into his head.

Deanna laughs, bright and silvery-sweet both out loud and in the molten tangle of their thoughts. "You're lucky I do."

He squeezes his fingers between hers and grins up at her, that same broad, shit-eating grin he's given everyone who looks at him like they can see the collar under his uniform. "I know." He wriggles his eyebrows. "I got to twenty-two, by the way. Including Geordi."

Deanna grins back and kisses him.

 

*


	26. Mirrors

"Kneel down," Deanna says, and he nods and does as he's told, watching his reflection do exactly the same. Like this he can see her face, even though she's standing behind him, and he can't help but be grateful for the idea. It grounds him to be able to meet her eyes while they take this step, and he thinks she knew that when she suggested the mirror in the first place.

Deanna puts her hand on his shoulder. "Are you ready?"

He takes a slow, deep breath and offers her a reflected smile. "Sure."

Deanna squeezes his shoulder, just lightly, and reaches over to what's laid out on the bed just behind him. "Keep on breathing like that," as she passes the leather collar from one hand to the other in front of his neck.

He does exactly that, focuses on his breath and not on how it's going to feel, having that against his skin. Not on what it's going to look like, seeing himself in the mirror like that. He's gotten used to how the smooth, comfortable weight of metal feels, but this is - it's different, deliberately intense, and he doesn't know -

 _Will. Look at me._ Deanna catches his gaze in the mirror. "It’s all right," and it's a gentle promise, with undercurrents of reassurance projected into his mind. "Relax," and she waits until he nods, slowly, and takes another breath in, and out, before she lets the leather touch his throat.

It's not exactly cool, like the other collar still resting below it; it's more the texture that he feels, soft and supple when he swallows hard against it. There's a hint of the firm metal band inlaid inside but it's the leather he can feel, the look of it contrasting against his skin that draws him in to stare at his own reflection, captivated by the sight as Deanna's hands close the back of the collar with a careful touch.

 _Breathe,_ she murmurs, again, because he needs the reminder and she must know it. She kneels down behind him, too, slightly to his left and very close; but up on her knees, so that he can still see her face over his shoulder. "Does that feel all right?"

He doesn't trust his voice for the moment, and he doesn't really need it to answer - he just gives her how it _does_ feel, comfortable but close-fitting, good but so intense...

Deanna touches the back of his neck, her fingertips slipping just between metal and skin.

 _No,_ he thinks, instant and sharp, and with a faint shudder of something tense that runs through him - at the thought, and an instant later, at realising how he's grown so reliant on how it feels even so quickly.

Deanna moves her hands and presses a soothing kiss into the curve of his shoulder, even as he forces another slow breath. "Sorry. I just…"

"Shh, don't be." She wraps her arms around him from behind, spreading her fingers across his stomach. He takes the offer for what it is and covers one of her hands with one of his, threading his fingers between hers. "We can leave them both on, if that's what you want." She smiles at him in the mirror. "I like how it looks," and he flashes her an answering smile, if one that's not exactly steady. She's right: and maybe she even knew he might feel like this when she had them made, because it looks good, the smooth metal sitting low on his neck setting off the engraved band laid into the thicker leather.

"It's different, though," Deanna says, quietly, and he nods. "Because you can't take this one off?"

That's definitely part of it - it's necessity, given what they do, that he can open the collar and cuffs he wears during the day, but he'll only ever look like this when he's with her. His fingers won't open the lock she's just closed with her own, and he can't deny there's a weight to that which has nothing to do with the physical feeling around his neck.

It's not fear: he trusts her with everything he is, but the _intent_ is different right now and there's something about making that real, about seeing it in his own reflection…

"Just let me know when you're ready," Deanna says, calm, and props her chin on his shoulder. There’s a part of him that wants to turn around and pull her close, bury his face in the familiar warmth of her hair and whisper the _thank you_ that’s in his head. She would let him, if he did: but he doesn’t, because he doesn't want this to stop here and he can't stop looking at the picture they make.

He studies her reflection behind his own. The smooth, naked line of her shoulders; the way her hair falls around her face, loose and slightly unruly from his earlier ministrations; but above all it's the look on her face and in her eyes that holds him there, that intoxicating mix of love and desire and joy that looks like he feels, like they both feel.

He can't imagine how he got lucky enough to have this with her: what he'd do if he had to rely on words to explain what he wants, instead of the ease of shared sensation and emotion and thought. It's so natural after all this time that he rarely thinks about it, but when he's watching her look at him, like that, it comes home with a startling moment of clarity just how amazing this is.

 _Imzadi._ It's soft and sweet in his head, because he can't realise that without her realising it too, or without turning his head to meet hers as she leans over his shoulder and kisses him. He slips his hand free of hers to reach up and stroke her hair, tucking a stubborn wave back behind her ear, and then he - calmly, deliberately - sits up a little straighter and puts both hands behind his back.

Deanna smiles at him, her lips so close they're almost still touching. He meets her eyes, the love and anticipation reflected back as if he's still looking in the mirror; she brushes her lips against his, just once more, and then sits back on her heels and reaches over to the bed.

He can't see, but he can feel it: the deliberate way her fingers stroke up and down his arms, where the leather's going to sit, and then she says, "Breathe, Will," and he remembers that's a good idea and does, right as the cuff tightens around his left wrist.

She squeezes his fingers. "Okay?"

It feels good - just tight enough, but then, she'd know that, is always careful to listen to how it feels as she’s doing anything to him. He moves his fingers a little, just to let her know he can, and Deanna kisses his back, just over his shoulder blade. Leather touches his other wrist and wraps around and he can't help looking at where it's wrapped around his neck, too, imagine how it looks…

"Will," Deanna says, and it's a gentle reprimand.

"Breathing. Right," he mutters, flexing his other hand. She laughs softly and straightens up, catching his gaze in the mirror, and he feels more than hears the way the cuffs lock together behind his back.

He'd expect, if it weren't Deanna, to be asked how it feels - but she gives him a wilful little smile, and the question is entirely different and entirely more erotic. _How does that look?_

He only breaks his gaze from hers so that he can answer. After all, he's here in front of the mirror so that he can take it all in exactly like this - his own face watching himself with eyes that look dark already; his own body, familiar and naked, kneeling with his back straight and both arms bound behind him; the slight hitch in how his chest rises and falls with each breath, and the way his cock is faintly dark and resting half-hard against his thigh. The black-and-red collar looks as comfortably snug as it feels around his neck, just above the comforting weight of the metal he's used to; he can almost read the engraving, but for not being fluent enough to read Cyndrit backwards. He swallows hard and he can feel the leather against his neck, see the way his skin moves under it.

"Good," he gets out, quiet, and it's a little soft in his throat. "Yours."

The pulse of pleasure is warm and loving and sultry, as Deanna puts her hands on his hips and leans just far enough to kiss the side of his neck, just beneath the collar. Her breath feels hot on his skin. "Do you know what I think?"

He doesn't really have to think, when he can feel it. He smiles, picking up the hint of playfulness in her even through what's definitely the overriding feeling. "I think it turns you on."

She smiles back at him in the mirror, a deep, dark sparkle in her eyes. _I think you're right._

He breathes deep against the collar again. "I think you want more than just this." He's deliberately not listening to hear if she has something specific in mind, but he can feel her arousal - and more than that, her bright, powerful, proud wonder bleeding into his head. He'd do whatever she wants to feed that feeling. "What do you want to do to me, imzadi?"

Deanna smiles. "That depends." She kisses his shoulder, strokes his hips, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “How deep do you think we can take you?”

He looks at his reflection breathing; can't not notice how it catches a little at the question. He's not sure of the answer, but he does know he wants to find it. It's never exactly difficult to slip into this space where Deanna's in control, and there's been a few times over the years, even when they weren't committed the way they are now, when it's been particularly profound - usually when he's been too stressed for either of them to stand it and this has been the only way even Deanna can help. But this feels like it could be different… simpler, beautiful instead of desperate, as if his subconscious already ties together the sensation of this collar around his neck, the image of himself looking like this, and the need to put himself so completely in her hands.

The moment he thinks that, Deanna's smile catches his attention, because it's absolutely stunning.

She curls an arm around the front of his shoulder, leaning up against his back and looking into his eyes, and then he fails to breathe again because he gets to see what it looks like when Deanna's hand comes to rest right on the back of his neck, between leather and metal, the warm pressure of her palm and the soft brush of her fingertips, and god, it's indescribable.

"Will." She smiles, pressing her thumb into his skin just a little. Her voice is gentle in his ear. "Take a deep breath," and he's doing that before he even thinks about it, already just obeying without the need to process it first. Deanna leans just as gently into his mind and strokes her other hand down his chest, to rest just below his heart. "I want you to focus on breathing for me, exactly like that. Can you do that?"

He doesn't say it out loud, because he doesn't want to break the pattern of his breathing so soon. It feels calming when he thinks it. _Yes, imzadi._

The last time he said that was teasing, and she treated it that way: now it's anything but, and so is the tender press of her touch inside his head, like a kiss, and he's so aware and so grateful that she knows he's not being playful - that it just fits, for him, into how this moment feels.

"Good." She strokes his neck. "Don't try and speak. Just breathe."

_Yes, imzadi._

"You belong to me. You'll do just what I say." It sounds, feels, like an affirmation, for her as much as him.

His next breath shakes a little going in: with delight or nervousness, he isn't sure. _Yes, imzadi._

Deanna smiles straight at him in the mirror, gentle and pleased, and he watches her hand stroke slowly down his stomach; watches as her fingers curl gently around his cock; watches the slow, teasing stroke that feels so good, even just that…

"Does that look as good as it feels?"

He's trying to breathe, still, and her other hand is still on his neck, stroking just as slow and easy as the hand around his swelling cock; it's all he can do to think coherently. _Yeah,_ because it does. She's luminous, beautiful, and totally focused on him - he's always loved watching her, but watching her do _this_ , to him, is an exercise in pure ecstasy.

She trails kisses along the length of his shoulder as she strokes him, as far as she can reach, licking and sucking gently at his skin: between that and her expert hand working his cock, he's so sensitive that even the first light nip of her teeth makes him moan quietly. He may have told Beverly that Deanna doesn't bite, but it's not always entirely true, and he loves that it isn't.

"Mmm…" Deanna's pleasure is slightly feline, golden and velvet, her hum vibrating through him. _Is that good?_

Breathe. He needs to breathe. _Yeah,_ and it's only then that she bites harder into the curve of his neck, a sharp spike of real pain, and something goes light and unsteady inside his head. _God, yes, imzadi._

Deanna licks his neck and brushes her lips against his ear. "Do you want to watch yourself come?"

He swallows tightly. "Not yet." It feels good, really fucking good, but he wants - he just _wants_. "Don't make me come yet," and he's pleading, not that he cares. "Please."

Deanna presses her smile back into the curve of his neck, right where his skin still stings from her teeth. _Good. I don't want you to come yet,_ and one last, tight, twisting stroke of her hand leaves his cock hard and aching and abandoned, drags another moan from his throat.

"Oh, god…" He's not sure what he wants, with that gone, only that the need is curling like a molten dragon in his belly.

"You want something else," Deanna murmurs.

_Yes, imzadi._

He can feel that smile, in his head instead of on his skin. "Good," and she takes her hand very carefully from his neck, as gentle removing that grounding touch as she is giving it to begin with. In the mirror, he can see her lean toward the end of the bed, but he only gets a glimpse of something in her hand before his own body blocks his view.

"Don't look." She means into her head as much as anything, but it's more a reassurance than a command. She runs her fingers down his spine, very gently. "Eyes forward," and there's a long moment when he's just breathing, in and out, looking into his own eyes in the mirror…

Deanna moves into his line of sight. Her eyes are bright with pleasure, that same smile playing on her lips as she touches her fingers under his chin and kisses him, very softly, tiny playful kisses with soft licks of her tongue into his mouth, her teeth tugging at his lower lip, sucking it into her mouth until he can't breathe steadily at all, as much as he's trying -

She's so skilfully distracting that he hasn't noticed her hands, so the sharpness of cold metal biting into his nipple shoots through him without warning - down his spine and straight to his cock, and everything goes very slightly hazy. _Fuck - oh - fuck, that hurts -_

"Mmm, I know." She strokes his cheek, still smiling, still peppering his lips with kisses. "Mmm… does it feel good?"

It's so tight, pin-sharp and painful: he wants it to stop and wants it to stay just _exactly_ like that. He drags in another breath. _Yes, imzadi._

Deanna leans back barely an inch, just enough that he can fix his gaze on that wicked smile: it takes him a moment to realise why, that it's going to happen again - a moment that he realises, dimly, that she's deliberately letting him have, that she's waiting until he knows it's coming.

 _Well done,_ and there's gentle pleasure in her touch - and then that biting pain floods through him a second time, is just as sharp and bright and cold but _oh fuck_ it's worse, feeding into the whole tangle of pain-pleasure already running through him. _Ah, god…_

"Shh." Deanna touches her fingers to his lips. "Shh, it's all right, just let it hurt," and she scrapes her nails down his chest and he shudders, gasping, only barely holding his gaze on her face; scratches them all the way down the length of his cock and he moans, twitching, his eyes almost slipping closed.

"Will." Her voice is gentle, but still firm. "Look at me."

He looks at her. She smiles, that sensual, calm smile.

Something cold and tight closes around his cock - not close to the root where he's almost expecting it but right below the head, where he's so sensitive it drives the breath out of him - it's smooth, metal, but there's something pressing right into his skin, right where he'd beg for her fingers but hard and cold and it doesn't _hurt_ , not the way his nipples ache and throb, but the _sensation_ is just…

"Do you like that?"

He doesn't even think, it's like the feeling speaks for him. _Yes, imzadi._

"I'm glad. I want it to feel good for you," and he's thinking _god, it does, it feels so good,_ almost before she's said it.

Deanna kneels up and runs her fingers through his hair, pulls his head down a little to press a kiss to his forehead. "You're doing so well, imzadi." She tips his chin back up and kisses him, and it's proud and tender and full of love. "Let me show you how you look," and then she's getting back to her feet and moving out of his line of sight again.

His reflection looks back at him out of the mirror. He can't help the sound he makes at the sight - the tight, toothed metal rings clamped around each nipple and the smooth ring closed with a ball of cold crystal just under the head of his cock - all of them are the same dark blue-grey as the collar around his neck, as if this is just a completion of how he's always bound now. There's a sheen of sweat across his skin, his pupils are wide and dark, his cock hard and swollen between his thighs, red and twitching against that cold metal grip that's holding him instead of her fingers.

It's enough to almost break him right now, but fuck, there's going to be _more_ …

 _Oh, Will, so much more,_ and there's an image in the words that makes him almost beg already, of how he looks right now - so vulnerable and strong kneeling there, all for her, and all that's holding him on his knees is how much he wants to please her -

 _Deanna…_ He bites his lip to keep from begging, at least out loud. _I don't know if I can take it._

Deanna's always rewarded his honesty, especially at moments like this; gentle warmth fills his head and he feels her reaching, seeking the right place to help the pain tip over into that overwhelming pleasure when the time comes.

 _I know you can,_ whispered in his mind, where he can feel how much faith she has in him. _You're just going to relax and let me take you, all right? Don't think. Don't worry. Just feel all of it._

He pulls in a long, deep breath, and it's still painful and unsteady but he's rewarded by the way she looks at him in the mirror as she kneels back down behind him, all pride and tenderness. _Okay,_ and he means it completely, all over again and deeper now, driven to it by the way it all feels and the understanding that the only way to take it, to get what he needs, is to give up everything except what she tells him to do.

The next time he lets a breath out, slow and careful, it makes his head start to buzz with pleasure, a hot tingle across his scalp: Deanna puts her hand on his shoulder, right where she can stroke her thumb against the back of his neck. "That's it, there, just like that," she murmurs, and she sounds so proud of him that tears almost well in his throat. "Close your eyes if you want to. I'm right here," and there's more than tenderness, there's steel strength under the words, in her presence inside his head. It makes him think of being weighted down, but gently, like she's the gravity keeping him from falling.

She's just quiet behind him for a few moments, letting him sink into the depth of how it's starting to feel - so quiet that when she does move it catches his gaze, even now it's slightly unfocused. He watches her reach for the bed and sees her smile as she notices.

"Remember, eyes forward." Her voice is slightly teasing; he can't see what's in her hand, and it takes an effort to pull in another breath before she reminds him of that, too…

Something blunt and cold, slicked-wet-slippery, presses lightly against the small of his back and strokes down: he draws in the next breath deeper to keep from twitching at the sensation of it, even just gentle, pushing between his cheeks. Deanna moves her hand to his hip and lays a calming touch on his thoughts.

"Shh. Let me do this for you," and he feels a light, coaxing push, just gently starting to open him up.

He swallows. _Yes, imzadi._

"That's it." Another push, harder, and the slick feeling of cool, slippery gel to help it along; he lets his eyes fall closed and feels her soft smile. "That's it, just relax," as she pushes again, just a little harder still.

He breathes in, and the pain is still there but that tingle is all over now, starting to make his skin sing with pleasure: he relaxes on the out breath and he’s sure he can feel her helping if only because she pushes at exactly at the right moment, slow but insistent, and he's not sure he should be so relaxed, for so much, so easily, but his body has other ideas _-_ he can feel every inch of it, fucking him open, and then the sudden, full-body burst of sensation as it goes past any resistance and he squeezes his eyes shut tighter because it feels - _oh, god, yes, what…_

Pleasure and pride lap over his mind; Deanna puts her hand on his back and the image in his head, and he can't help the way his breath falters and comes faster as he ties the feeling and the image together – a familiar dark teardrop of solid glittering versina crystal, flared at the base, polished smooth and shaped just right for when he's kneeling like this, to press against that exact spot deep inside him where even the slightest movement sends a jolt of fire up his spine. It feels huge and heavy and cold and so _good_ , so suddenly, he's breathing hard without even realising, tripping over an apology in his head - one that Deanna smooths down before he can even put it in words, her palm coming to rest back against his neck.

"Shh, take your time." She slips her thumb under his collar, gently stroking against his skin. "Remember, deep breaths." 

 _Yes, imzadi._ It's easy to think it now, reflexive, gives him some balance back as he tries to fill his lungs as deep as he can. The pain in his chest is all pleasure, now, with every rise and fall, and with the added stimulation it's like it settles under his skin, a kind of low pulsing heat that radiates up his spine from the thick bulb of crystal filling his ass and down from the soft pressure of Deanna's hand on the back of his neck, beats with his heart and the hot throbbing ache across his chest and in his cock, all of it curling together into just _feeling_ …

_More?_

He shudders, and even just that slight movement makes his next breath a moan, between the pain in his nipples and the cold, hard pressure inside him. He almost can’t answer because he knows what more she has, what only Deanna can add to the exquisite pleasure rippling through him, and it’s going to make everything else pale by comparison...

 _Please, imzadi._ It's going to be too much for him to take, except that she believes he can, she wants him to, so he will, and he'll beg for it as hard as she wants. _Please._

“Please?”

He’s breathing just to make it hurt now. “Please, I want you,” _I need you, please._ He opens his eyes and Deanna's standing again, behind him, watching him quietly with the same tenderness he can feel in his head shining in her eyes.

"You look beautiful," she murmurs, and he can't help but agree with her. He looks so thoroughly owned, like this - it feeds that pulsing heat under his skin, the sight of himself bound and collared and filled and kneeling under Deanna's hand. It's perfect.

 _Zamíiel_ , is the word that comes into his head, the sound of it in his own voice. Deanna scratches her fingernails lightly up from his neck into his hair, and he only has to imagine for half a moment before she's tugging, gently but just firm enough to pull his head back and his gaze away from the mirror, onto her face, so that he's looking into her eyes when she slips completely into his head.

"Is this what you want?" Her fingers are tight in his hair, but her voice is soft, and she means where she’s hovering just barely without touching that deep, raw place inside his mind, just waiting for him.

He breathes, once. _Yes, imzadi,_ and just thinking it makes him start to tremble; he's afraid if she lets go he won't be able to hold himself up, but he still won't resist this. _I need you, I need to feel you, I need you to take me._ He needs it even if it hurts, especially if it hurts. _Please, Deanna…_

 _It's all right, I've got you. I won't let go,_ and she doesn't, just leans down and holds his head back and kisses him, tenderly, hard enough that he moans quietly into her mouth - and then her touch lands and digs into his mind, so deep it's more dangerous than a straight razor at his neck and so forceful that he can't do anything about it even if he wanted to try - and it's the last piece of the puzzle, the only thing left he needs -

He can't think. It's all sensation, so intense - leather and metal and crystal, skin and thought, pain and pleasure and it hurts but it doesn't hurt at all, it's _beyond_ that, into something he doesn't even have words for - 

it's like she's launched him into freefall, it just feels _incredible._

Deanna drops to her knees beside him, still holding his mouth to hers, and scratches her nails down his chest - one more sensation to fuel this incredible, indescribably beautiful wildfire of feeling - and then her hand finally wraps back around his aching, throbbing cock and he doesn't even think it consciously - _yes, imzadi, please, imzadi, please_

Her grip is as tight around his cock as it is in his head, and she's exactly as rough and relentless with both as he needs, to tip him over the edge: he comes in seconds, groaning and gasping, so hard it hurts even more when he thought it couldn’t and he's screaming, shameless and laid open right down to his soul, like there's nothing left that can hold him down except Deanna and she's the one thing setting him free.

She doesn’t let it go, pressing down into his mind, squeezing and rubbing his own come around the head of his cock until his whole body is shaking and he can only faintly hear himself begging her to stop. She only does, after what feels like forever, when he doesn’t have words or breath left even to beg; there's a blissful moment when she finally slips the ring free and releases his cock to drop against his thigh, and then he’s babbling at the sudden, crystal clear knowledge of why, of what’s coming next - _no no no please no –_

“Shhhh,” and then her fingers pinch his burning nipples, flicking and twisting, and he loses even that last semblance of coherent thought, and that’s exactly what Deanna’s waiting for.

She tugs the clamps free, one and then the other in such quick succession it feels like the snap of a cane across his chest - the blood rushing back is agony, nova-bright and beautiful, so overwhelming he can’t even scream. The only sound that will come is a raw, keening sob before everything turns to white noise and fireworks behind his eyes, golden and sparking at every breath with the overload of feeling.

He feels the moment she lets go of his mind: the endorphins she's held him back from feeling hit at something approaching warp speed, so much and so bright and high and buzzing through him that he's got no control at all - it all just feels too good and he can't hold it in, can't feel his skin, can't think anything but _oh god I love you thank you I love you imzadi thank you_

He's only dimly aware that he's sobbing quietly, tears streaking down his face; and that Deanna is just holding him tenderly, stroking his hair, while she lets him press his face into her neck and cry.

 _Shh, I'm here, I've got you, you're safe, imzadi, hush, it's all right._ She's still in his head, almost that deep still but gentle now, just the same way her fingers are gentle in his hair. _It's all right, just relax, just feel it, I won't let you go._

 _Deanna,_ he thinks, because she'll always be his first thought, especially now.

 _Hush,_ but it's love, soothing, not a command at all now. He shudders and whimpers gratefully into her neck. It feels like he'd float away if she weren't holding him.

 _I love you._ There's nothing else left inside him but that. _I love you, my god, thank you, imzadi, I love you_

 _Shh, I know._ Her smile feels like pure joy inside him. _I'm so proud of you, for all of this,_ and even incoherent he knows she means not just now, not just the collar around his neck or how much he's taken tonight but everything. Everything he's finally accepted in himself these past few weeks, everything he's helped her accept that she wants, too. _I love you, too,_ and it makes him cry all over again to feel that emotion so deeply right now, but he doesn't care at all.

*


	27. Branding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can't gift a single chapter, but this one is for [TheTruthBetween](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTruthBetween/pseuds/TheTruthBetween) who requested the Cyndri terms, and therefore is responsible for where this went.

 

It should be difficult for her, given their relative statures, to get Will up onto his feet and even the few steps into her bed - but Deanna's never been without a few advantages. She can't take control of his body for him, of course, but she can fool his mind into believing he's still at least somewhat able to function, for those few seconds it takes. It's something that she's not sure is possible with anyone else and not even Will when he's not like this, so utterly raw and open to anything she wants to do to him, his body or his mind.

She waited until the tears stopped to let him move, but they're still wet on his face as she pushes him gently back against the pillows and cups her palm against his cheek, nudging him to look at her. Will gives her a hazy smile, floating and unfocused; she smiles back and kisses him very softly, can't help an even softer laugh when he tries to touch her again and can't make his hands well work enough to pull her down.

"Shh, I'll be there soon." She stretches up and kisses his forehead instead, trying not to tempt him any more than she has to. _And I'm right here._

 _I want you._ It's a pleading thought, giddy but plaintive, and she strokes her hand down his arm and lifts his hand to her face, kissing the inside of his wrist below the edge of the leather cuff he's still wearing.

"I'm all yours, imzadi. Shh," she bats his other hand back down, gently, and brushes sweat-damp hair back from his temple. "You need to let me take care of you."

 _Mm. All right._ He's still so pliant, so trusting, it brings a hot ball of emotion to the back of her throat. She presses her lips into his palm, then puts his hand down, firmly enough that he stays like that even when she sits up and moves down the bed.

He doesn't even protest when she moves his legs apart, pushing his knees up enough to give her the room she needs; she can feel the sparks of pleasure still firing off inside his head, slow now like he's riding a wave, and that at least makes it a little easier to do this without hurting him any more.

 _Take another deep breath for me,_ she thinks, because it's the best way to make sure he hears her and because she can make it a command that bypasses his conscious mind, fills his lungs and then empties them with a long, slow exhale. _Good, one more,_ and he does, and she slides the skin-hot crystal out of him on that second breath out: one smooth motion and it's done but even with her control shoring him up, his breath catches at the feeling and breaks into a low, shaking groan.

Deanna stretches out along his side. "Shh." His eyes are closed so she touches him instead, strokes his temple, his cheek, his chin, rests her hand against his neck. "Shh, it's over. You can just relax now." His collar is warm like skin under her hand; his pulse is still thudding hard enough to feel through the leather. _Will. Can you look at me?_

 _Mmm..._ He blinks his eyes open, pupils blown wide and still not focusing, but there's no pain left behind them. She smiles, resting her thumb on his lips so that he won't try and talk, yet.

"I’m going to leave this on for you." She tugs a finger lightly under the warm leather. The feel of it is grounding him, right now, and she's not willing to take that away just yet. "If you want to take it off, I'm listening," and she adds a mental caress to underpin the words.

His fingers brush her arm, and the way he leans into that mental touch is like a particularly sated cat, languid and drowsy. _Thank you._ It's not exactly words, but she can feel the meaning clearly enough, and the gratitude that's as much for her understanding as everything she's done.

She rubs her thumb lightly across his lower lip. "Whatever you need, you know that."

 _You, I just need you._ His hand strokes at her skin; soft but a little insistent, as if he's not even conscious of it - just reacting to that pure need she can hear in his mind, and she can tell that even just that simple touch is helping bring him back down as much as leaving the collar around his neck. She can already feel his heart slowing, finally, and along with it his world starting to come slowly back into focus; she just needs to make sure it's comfortable for him when it does.

 _I'm right here, I promise._ She says it inside his mind because that's where she means, where it matters most, even as she starts to move away from his side and his fingers clutch at her arm. _Hush, I'm right here. You can feel me. Can you feel me?_

His breath trembles a little, but his hand relaxes. _Yeah._

 _Good._ She slides off the edge of the bed, without taking her eyes from his face. _I'm always right here, you know that. Just let me take care of you._

Will lets out a long, slow, shuddered breath. _Okay._

She smiles. _That's it. Relax now._ The bathroom is only a few steps away; she fills a glass with cold water and wets a cloth, as well, warm enough to be comforting but not to hurt on sensitive skin. He hasn't moved even an inch before she's back beside him, putting the glass carefully down on the dresser and with one hand, gently turning his face toward her.

 _I'm just going to clean you up a little,_ and she does, wiping the dried tears from his face before turning her attention lower. He twitches with a soft, shaking moan when she cleans the sticky mess from his cock, even so very gently; the sound softer but almost another sob when she gives his ass the same gentle attention, and she has to lean into his mind a little to help him through it, even that lightest of sensations almost too much to take now that he's almost lucid again.

"Shhh." There's dried sweat on his skin and he needs to shower, but that can come later. "That's it, shh, we're done now. You did so well." _You're so good at this, do you know that? I’m so proud of you._

He licks his lips, as if he's trying to remember how to speak again. "Deanna…"

She puts the cloth down to take his hand in hers. "Hey. Slowly." She squeezes his fingertips. "Have some water, and then you can rest, all right?"

His eyes are focused, now, and fixed on her like he can't see anything else. His voice is slightly hoarse, with emotion and having screamed his throat raw. "With you?"

She laughs softly and strokes his hair. "Yes, with me."

"Mmm. Okay."

It's not the easiest job to get him sitting up, even just enough to lean on her and take careful sips of water, but they manage it between them. Will drinks half the glass before he can't stay upright anymore and she helps him flop back onto the pillows, smiles at the way he rolls onto his side and curls himself toward the space where she usually sleeps, as if he's already expecting her there.

She puts the glass back on the dresser; draws the sheets up around him and tucks them in; presses a kiss into his hair. "Miéu'el di shé," she murmurs, into his ear, and the warm, adoring, answering touch of his mind is so beautiful it makes her heart soar.

She slides back into the bed beside him and presses close, and Will immediately drapes himself around her like a second blanket, buries his face back in the crook of her neck and in one long, quiet breath goes finally, utterly relaxed, so deeply she'd think he's dropped immediately asleep except that she can hear the quiet whisper of his mind. _I love you, thank you, that was..._

She smiles, almost a soft laugh. "Oh, imzadi." She slides her hand around the back of his neck, smoothing the ends of his hair with her fingertips. "Thank you," she whispers back, and she means it just as equally. That image, that _feeling_ isn't going to leave her head for a long time - of Will Riker so deeply under her control that she could take him so far, looking and feeling like that entirely for her, simply because she wants him to. She's always known how much he loves and trusts her, but having him show it so clearly - not even because he needs the release of it, only because he _wants_ to go there with her, to give her that much of himself… "You did wonderfully," she murmurs, still stroking his hair. "Can you feel how proud I am of you?"

 _That's all I want,_ is the honest thought that comes from the very depths of him, almost entirely feeling, and she knows it in a way she's hardly ever felt before - that all he wants is to be worthy of her, to make her proud and have her love him, completely and unconditionally.

She nuzzles his cheek. It's easy, still, to slide deeper into his mind than she might when he's not this exposed and vulnerable - but she can feel how much he welcomes it, the warm-bronze caress of his thoughts exhausted but loving. "I've always loved you like that," she murmurs, in a voice so soft it almost doesn't work. He knows that, and she knows he does, but she'll tell him in words whenever he wants to hear it - especially when he's like this, hers so completely that she doesn't ever want to let him go. "I always will." She nuzzles into his neck and into his mind. "Go to sleep now?"

Will kisses her neck in return, as happy and satisfied as she's ever felt him. _Yes, imzadi._

 

She waits until Will is thoroughly dead to the world, still completely wrapped around her and so deeply unconscious he's not even dreaming, until she lets herself fall asleep, nestled into his arms and cradling his sleeping mind with hers. When she wakes up hours later it's to Will kissing his way down her back, slow and tender, his beard scratching pleasantly around the soft press of his lips and his hands gentle, reverent, as they stroke over her skin.

 _Mmmm…_ She blinks, sleepily, smiling, and reaches toward his mind. He feels so relaxed, so absolutely content that it's like waking up to a gentle sunrise in her head. _That's nice..._

Will grins into the dip of her spine. _Good morning, my beloved._

She laughs delightedly into the pillow. _You haven't used Standard to say that for years._

 _But it's true,_ and she can feel that, even if he didn't say the words. Still smiling, she nestles back down and just lets herself enjoy the feeling of his mouth and hands all over her, leaning into the quiet, contented pleasure he's feeling that still lingers from last night and is only picking up again as he lavishes attention on her in return. He works his way back up the cool trail left by his kisses, just as slowly, this time with soft licks and nibbles that almost tickle, but for the intensity of how he's feeling and how that bleeds over into her head.

"I've been thinking," he murmurs in her ear, nibbling at her neck, and something about that intensity starts to come into focus for her…

She rolls over, to face him. "About what?"

Will's fingers, gentle, smooth her hair back and tuck a wayward strand behind her ear. "Words. What they mean. What this means."

She frowns, just a little, sensing the faint hesitation in his mind - and the way he's carefully shielding something from her. "Will? What's wrong?"

He looks, and feels, almost sheepish. "I think I need you to help me."

"Anything." She says it instantly, touching his face with light fingertips. "Tell me."

"It's okay." He gives her that calm contentment under the words, reassurance as he takes her hand. "It's only that I can't remember how to pronounce it properly." There's a memory, clear in his head - the scent of Jalara, the dazed feeling of the very first time they made love and he was still trying to understand, so very young… _imzi, something…_

"Imzadi," she says, with a soft smile, pronouncing it just a little slower, teasing. "Did I empty your mind that much?"

Will chuckles. "Almost." He holds her palm against his cheek, pressing his lips into the curve of her wrist. "Just - tell me if I get this wrong?"

"Will, you're-"

She stops, because he frames the meaning in his mind before he actually tries to say it out loud - and if it was unbearably beautiful to put each collar around his neck, to take him so deeply last night, then the sudden knowledge that he wants _this_ almost stops her heart.

" _Athadi_ ," he says, manages the hard-soft _t_ even though his accent is slightly off, and his voice breaks a little but she's never quite heard him say anything in her language, in fifteen years, so perfectly.

She opens her mouth, tries to think, but nothing will come. Will smiles.

"Say it?" He's gentle, and hopeful, and utterly earnest. "Please?"

"I…" She knows the answer but she just needs to ask, needs to be _absolutely_ sure. "Will… you know what that _means_ , don't you?"

His eyes sparkle: she can see him only just holding back a grin. "Between two people, under certain circumstances…"

She laughs and presses closer to him, even though she can feel tears welling in her throat. "Oh, Will…"

"I know what it means." He's smiling, still, but she can feel how serious he is. He folds her hand into his and holds her fingers to his lips. _My owner. The one who holds my soul._ It's like the love shines out of him when he thinks it - she's amazed the whole ship can't feel it. "You know I mean this. Don't be frightened of it."

He could be asking her to marry him, and she'd be less stunned. But then, he's asking for that and so much more - and the most terrifying, most exhilarating part is she can imagine it so easily. She's only ever been to one ownership ceremony, in the same chapel where they met but years after, and yet it doesn't take any effort at all to imagine the two of them there instead. How Will would go to his knees in front of her, in front of everyone, looking just like this, naked but for the bonds she's put on him. How he'd sign his heart and life and mind and soul over to her, in writing for anyone to see and in that far more private, far more permanent way that only another Betazoid will ever understand but will shine off him just like this to anyone who looks, even without needing to get inside his head.

She imagines it hurts to have a mind branded that way, even if it's such a good pain: she remembers Andrus crying joyfully, Kathella holding him tightly as she recited the promises and her absolute resolve to be worthy of the man she loved, how it resonated throughout every mind in the chapel. She doesn't recall the words, except for the one still in Will's mind, and one other.

She pushes him down onto the bed and takes his face in her hands, and kisses him with all that same resolve - and when she pulls back and touches her forehead to his, she smiles down into his eyes.

" _Azadi_ ," she murmurs, knowing he won't care if her voice isn't steady either, that he can feel the meaning in her mind just the same. It's an ancient word, a root word to so many in her language, including the endearment that's defined them for almost half her lifetime… and the partner and pair to the one still new and bright in his mind. It means _my soul_ in the most possessive, most profound way possible: _mine to own, to love, to care for._

Will shivers, and she smiles, brushing his hair back from his face. "Was that what you wanted to hear?"

His voice is rough but he sounds and feels like he could take on the galaxy. "God, yes, if you mean it."

"I do." _You know I do,_ and she gives him that image of a familiar chapel all bedecked in white and silver, of the ceremony she remembers that would - _will_ \- make him hers.

Will's joy soars down the bond between them: she feels like they could do anything, together, too, right in this moment, and wonders dimly if that's what makes her tease him just a little more. "By the way, if we're going to do this… if I called you _semái…_ "

It's a much less profound word, but the meaning is no less intense, all affection and love and control: the closest Standard comes is _pet, submissive, slave,_ a literal spoken reminder; _you, mine_. It's as if she can speak the feeling of gripping him hard by the back of the neck, and it gets almost the same reaction - Will growls and she can feel the lightning bolt of arousal that runs through him, how close he comes to grabbing her and shoving her down on the bed and kissing her senseless, except that single word holds him back even as fast as it turns him on.

"Let me make love to you, Athadi, _please,_ " and he's grinning even as he begs and Deanna laughs, that same joy burning bright inside her as she hooks her fingers under his collar and gives him permission with a kiss.

 

*


	28. Xenophilia

It's Will who sends Beverly a copy of Andrus' second book over breakfast, while Deanna massages the leftover ache from his shoulders and he feeds her pancakes from their shared plate whenever she wants a bite. Love and contentment tangle their minds together like warm silken threads and she doesn't even need to ask, for him to tell when to hold the fork up over his shoulder.

It doesn't feel like long enough before the plate is empty and she sighs ruefully, stills her hands and kisses the top of his head. _We have to go to work._

Will reaches up and squeezes her hand against his shoulder, moving her fingers over just enough to feel his collar under her thumb and forefinger. _We always do._

She smiles. She almost expected this morning to be filled with that overwhelmingly erotic charge of the first time he wore it, all over again, but neither of them feel like that at all. The way Will made love to her before they left her bed was slow and wonderful and reverent, with his mind as much as his body, as intently Cyndri as he's ever tried to be for her: the way he held her afterwards, tender and playful under a hot, cleansing shower, she would happily have stayed in his arms all day and just wrapped herself up in that feeling.

 _Me too._ Will turns around, keeping his hand in hers as he stands up. He pulls her fingers to his lips with a smile of his own. _Athadi._

She blushes, with delight more than embarrassment, which just makes him grin and tilt her chin up with his free hand and lean down to kiss her.  

 

"From a medical standpoint, the scans from the scouting probes were extremely promising," Beverly says, and takes a bite of her salad.

"Mm." Will swallows his mouthful of tea and tabs through to the next report. "Says here they found abundant flora on three of the six planets in the system. I can see why Starfleet Medical is so interested."

"Indeed." Picard picks up a PADD from the other side of the table. They're in the middle of a working lunch reviewing their next mission details - a mapping expedition deeper into the Beta Quadrant, following up on preliminary long-range scans that indicate potential life, plant if not animal, and given the make-up of other known planets in the area, a plethora of potential medical research applications. "Much as I would love to remain and explore what else the ancient Hanor have to tell us, Doctor T'Stara is confident that the expedition should be self-sufficient again within the week. Unless anyone has any objections, I see no reason to delay our departure much beyond that."

Will shakes his head. "We're about as ship-shape as we could be. Exemplary reports from Engineering-"

The overhead comm bleeps, interrupting him. Perim's voice comes through a second later. " _*Commander Riker, there's a communique coming through from Betazed. It's addressed to Counselor Troi or yourself, but I can't reach her…*_ "

He touches Deanna's mind: slides off a familiar-feeling mental shield, light but just enough to keep him out of her conscious thoughts. "It's all right, Ensign. She's with a patient," he says, to the comm and the room at large. He glances at Picard, then Beverly. "Does anyone mind if I…?"

"By all means, let's take a short break," Picard says, as Beverly nods and stands up, gesturing with her cup. Will nods in agreement and pushes back his chair.

"Patch it through to the observation lounge, Ensign."

" _*Aye, sir.*_ "

He stands up and moves to the screen on the far wall, tabs it on. He's fairly sure who it's going to be.

He's not disappointed.

The blonde woman who appears on the screen takes him in for all of a second before she blows air through her teeth in playful frustration. " _*All right, where is she?*_ "

He grins. "With a patient. Hi."

He can feel Beverly's eyes land on him. Between her and Chandra Xerx, he feels a little like an insect being pinned to a board, but at least he's an insect holding all the cards. " _*You told me before you told her mother, didn't you?*_ "

"You're easier to tell," he says, still grinning. Beverly hands him a fresh cup of tea, with a look that tells him he's in for it, when this call is done. He grins wider. "We'd have called her, but we're in the middle of a mission and it's a long way to Vulcan from here."

"* _The Council's in session today, Will. I can't shield that well, half the planet's going to know before she gets back.*_ " Chandra drops back into her seat, a luxurious teal-green couch set against the backdrop of Medara City through the broad window behind her. She sighs. " _*I hate you both,*_ " she says, playfully petulant. " _*She'll kill me when she finds out I knew first.*_ "

"You're not interested in being there, then?" he says, teasing. He listens to Beverly sitting back down, muttering something either to herself or the Captain. He wonders if she's checked her mail yet, today.

Chandra breaks into a bright, summer smile. " _*Mezai,*_ " and he can't help the way his grin softens into a smile of his own, at that gentle, familial endearment. " _*You_ know _how long I've been waiting for you two. Of course I'll be there.*_ " There's a softness in her eyes, then, and he wishes Deanna were beside him, wishes they were face to face and he could know, even vicariously, what that feeling is when she says, " _*I'm so happy, for both of you.*_ "

He can feel a faint blush of heat creeping up his neck as he smiles. He loved Chandra almost instantly, when they met properly - there was no way he couldn't, she and Deanna are so close, and she's one of the most simply lovely people he's ever known. He knows what her approval - more than that, her delight - is going to mean to Deanna: it means almost as much to him. "Thank you," he says, and it sounds a little thicker with emotion than he intended, but he can't exactly help it.

Her smile is familiar and gentle; he can almost feel what he'd feel, if she were in the room with him. " _*I have to go to the Council meeting, but I had to call first. I want you both to call me back, when you're off duty?*_ "

He's been doing the math on stardate to Betazed time for over a decade, so it comes to him instantly. "It'll be the middle of the night."

Chandra rolls her eyes. " _*I'll wake up, then.*_ "

He smiles. "All right. We'll make it as early as we can."

"* _Will.*_ " She leans forward a little. " _*I mean it, I'm good but I'm not that good. I won't be able to keep this a secret.*_ "

He shrugs. "If we wanted that, we wouldn't have told you." Betazed is about the most efficient rumor mill he's ever experienced; even the _Enterprise_ has nothing on how fast news can spread across a planet of telepaths. She's right: in a matter of hours, most of that planet will know that he's proposed not just marriage, but promised his entire self to Deanna Troi - and unlike anyone on board this ship, all of those people will know everything that means.

He's almost surprised that the idea doesn't faze him at all, but the fact that it doesn't only makes him think he's finally doing this right.

" _*You'll probably get a call from Kala,*_ " Chandra says. " _*Definitely Kathella and Andrus.*_ " 

He feels more than hears a PADD slip from someone's hands and hit the table he's leaning on. Chandra's gaze flickers over his shoulder and then back to him, and he sees that mischief flash in her dark eyes. There's a reason why this is Deanna's best friend, and why he's always gotten on so well with her, too. 

"I'll clear my calendar," he says dryly, with a grin. Chandra laughs.

" _*I'm sure he'll be happy to give you some expert advice,*_ " and he definitely hears Beverly choke on her tea, at that. " _*Just be sure to call her mother first.*_ "

He winces, only half playful. "Yes, mezai."

Chandra laughs, a soft, rich, happy sound. " _*Tell Deanna I'm proud of her. I thought she'd never manage to teach you manners.*_ "

It's a tease, but there's truth in there too. He smiles, warm. "I will."

" _*Call me later,*_ " Chandra says, and blows him a kiss as she leans forward, and the screen switches back to the usual Starfleet emblem.

When he turns back around, Beverly's got that expression on her face - the one he recognises as her director's look, the one that reminds him that as much as he loves her, there's a good reason he lets the junior officers take the acting roles these days. She has _plans_ to make him talk, either now or later.

"Sorry," he says, cheerfully. "Shall we carry on?"

 

"What does _mezai_ mean?"

Deanna blinks and looks up as Beverly slides into the seat across from her. "What?"

"It's a Betazoid word, right?"

"Um. Yes." She puts her PADD down. "It means - well, the surface meaning is something like 'my family'. It's something I might call you, or Geordi, or Data."

"Or Will?"

She smiles. "I have other terms for Will. Though I suppose it still applies. Why?"

"Just curious." Beverly's eyes are sparkling with mischief. "Will had a call during our briefing earlier, that's all."

She touches his mind on instinct: he's deep in conversation, but she's still fairly certain she knows who would have called, even without confirming it - there's a fairly short list of people she'd learn that word from, talking to Will, and they only messaged one of those people before breakfast.

"Chandra," she says. Beverly hums behind her glass.

"Mm-hmm. It sounded like a _very_ interesting call."

"Oh?"

"Andrus Kjan is a friend of yours."

Oh, it's going to be one of those conversations. She reaches over for her hot chocolate. "I never said he wasn't."

"A friend who wrote one of the foremost texts on traditional Cyndri relationships."

"I have talented friends." She gestures across the table with a smile.

Beverly glares at her. "A friend who according to Chandra is suddenly going to call you."

She takes a slow sip of chocolate before answering, in a mild tone. "That's nice. I haven't heard from him in a while. Did you check your mail yet today?"

" _Deanna._ "

She arches an eyebrow. "You didn't want to keep dancing?"

"Oh my god," Beverly says, and puts her drink to the side and pulls her chair in close and leans forward. " _Tell me_ or I'm going to go mad."

Deanna laughs. "Tell you what?"

"Whatever it is you told Chandra this morning that apparently, half of Betazed knows about by now."

"You really didn't check your mail yet today."

"I checked it earlier. You sent me another book to read."

"Did you look at the title?"

" _Deanna._ "

She picks up her PADD, pulls up what she wants and turns it for Beverly's eyes. And waits.

Those eyes go wide, and wider, and slightly wild.

"What - you're -"

She smiles proudly. "Yes."

" _Deanna!_ "

"That's a very thorough grasp of my name," she says, smirking. "Read the first chapter. I'll wait."

Beverly gives her a dirty glare, but tucks one foot up onto the chair and rests the PADD against her thigh. Deanna smirks.

_Having fun?_

She doesn't need to turn, to know that the doors opening across the room are to let him enter. _Beverly's reading._

Beverly looks up as if she's heard her name. "His wife…?"

Deanna sips her chocolate. "Kathella. She's a novelist. We went to University together."

"She _owns_ him?!"

"That happens on Betazed." Will touches her shoulder and smiles down at her, as he pulls up a third chair with the other hand. "Hi."

She smiles up at him, just as impish. "Hi." He puts his chair close enough that it's not a stretch for her to reach over and rest her hand on the back of his neck, smooth the ends of his hair with her fingertips. The way he feels at that touch, even right here in the middle of Ten Forward - instant relaxation, quiet happiness - settles a deep warmth inside her.

_Chandra's ecstatic. We have to call her. Kathella and Andrus might call, too._

_So I gather._

He puts his hand on her leg under the table. _Are you okay?_

She leans into the comforting bronze-red warmth of his mind with a mental shrug. _I'm just feeling very non-Human right now, I think._

Will's hand tightens, gently; love and pride and reassurance flood into her mind in a pulsing wave, hot and fierce. _You're not Human. You're Cyndri, and I love you for it._

She's always known that, but sometimes those words are exactly what she needs: to be reminded that Will knows, accepts, loves that as much as her genetics make her half-Human, her culture is all Cyndri. And he might still think it's a little aristocratic, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love her for who she _is_ , not who she might try to be for Starfleet or their Human family.

She doesn't care that they're in Ten Forward, or that Beverly is trying not to look like she's watching them as she reads: she tightens her hand on his neck and pulls him in and he comes willingly, his other hand coming up to her face and while she tries to just kiss him, there's a second when he presses back against her grip, looks right into her eyes and smiles.

"Athadi," he murmurs, and it sends a shiver through her to hear him say it - perfectly like he's been practicing - out loud, in public, in her native tongue, and then he stops resisting and leans in to her kiss.

Beverly's given up the pretence when they break apart: she's just watching them with a faintly wistful and very indulgent smile, and it's Will's eyes she meets when they both look at her.

“Deanna really is perfect for you, isn't she?”

Will chuckles, squeezing her thigh under the table. “You hadn't realised that by now?”

“I didn't know Betazoids did _this_ ,” with a wave of the PADD in her hand.

"There's a lot you don't know about Betazoids," Will says, mischief in his tone and in his mind. _Oh, wouldn't I love to show her what you can really be like._

Deanna giggles: she can't help it, at the way that teasing feels inside her mind - so playful it's almost ticklish, and she wonders if the Briar Patch might have had some kind of permanent effect after all, on both of them. _Well, we will have to go home for the ceremony._

"So, come on, when are you…?"

"We'll let you know when we've figured that out," Will says, and takes his hand from her thigh only so that he can take her hand, lifting her fingers to his lips.

Beverly gets a wicked look in her eyes. "If either of you tell Jean-Luc about this without me, I will _never_ forgive you."

Will grins, just as wicked. "Deal."

 

*


	29. Overstimulation

Deanna flops down naked into bed beside him, throws her arm across his chest and buries her face in his neck, rubbing herself against him in a way that - even without the very clearly sensual, _sexual_ throb of her thoughts as she pushes into his mind - makes it absolutely clear he'd better be up for some physical exertion, and quickly.

"Oh my god, they're driving me _crazy_ ," she mumbles, almost a growl and only really coherent because he can feel the frustration underneath the words, exasperated and very definitely desperate.

He drops the book he's been reading face-down onto his chest and puts his hand on the back of her head, stroking her hair as he curls closer to her. "What happened?"

The image is sharp and over-bright, all heat and deep color: _walking into the turbolift with the Captain, talking, starting to relax her mind and then suddenly behind the turbolift doors - Beverly, off duty, in a soft green sweater and leggings; the bare, porcelain-pale, oh-so-kissable skin of her shoulders and the sinful red of her lipstick and the long, slender, graceful line of her legs -_

_\- and Jean-Luc, the faint male scent of him, stripped down to his undershirt straight from the planet's surface - arms bare and tanned and muscled, pale curls of wiry hair enticing at what's under that shirt, soft kissable lips and excited eyes as he talks -_

"I nearly killed _both_ of them." She wriggles a little, pressing even closer to him, kissing his neck. "I think it might be our fault," muttered in between licks and kisses and he doesn't know whether to wince or laugh, so it comes out a little of both, especially combined with the way her mouth is working across his skin.

"Mm, oh?"

Deanna makes a frustrated noise and climbs on top of him, shoving his book out of the way, her weight comfortably heavy and very insistent on his chest. " _Will…_ "

He takes her head gently in both hands, threads his fingers into her hair. "Right. Later."

Relief floods into him, thoroughly mixed with arousal and desire. He can feel it in the way she presses her hips against his and leans into his touch, hear it in her voice as she closes her eyes and leans just as hard into his mind. "I don't care what you do, just make me come, _please…_ "

He grins and strokes his hands down her neck, her shoulders, skimming her breasts to grip her hips, and then he flips her onto her back in a single, easy move and drops his head to catch her mouth in a kiss. _I'm always at your service, Athadi._

Even just the whisper of that word and his weight on top of her helps: he can feel that in her mind, but in the sigh she lets out into his mouth, too - it's all that relief, as she eagerly opens her thighs and wraps her legs around him with a very definite purpose.

It isn't the first time he's needed to help her like this, and he's pretty sure it won't be the last - it's just another fact of life and has been for years, being as close to her as he is and with the life she's chosen, among people who so rarely shield their emotions even if they know how. He's thankful, for her far more than himself, that it's only the particularly primal and fervent emotions that can really get under her own impressive mental shields - but when they do it's too often like this, an insistent itch that she knows isn't hers but needs to scratch regardless.

They're going to have to do something about Beverly and the Captain, he thinks, absently, but she's right - later. Definitely later.

He only breaks the kiss so that he can look into her eyes as he slides a hand down between them, watch the mix of frustrated need and relieved pleasure in her eyes when he presses his fingers into her. "God, you're so wet," he murmurs, because she _is_ , enough that his first two fingers slide in deep and easy and Deanna just moans softly and grips his arm.

_Will… can I…_

He doesn't need her to explain what she needs, what she wants to do to him: it's clear as glass in her head. He finds her clit with his thumb: she moans again and bites her lip, and he grins. "You're not going to need to," because as much as he'll do anything for Deanna, up to and including letting her literally reach into his head and turn him on, the feel and sound and scent of her right now is doing that job _just_ fine. He presses his hips down, just to prove it, and Deanna arches into him with a soft, delighted growl.

 _I want you,_ hot and needy in his head and he's got no doubt at all, the way she's grinding down onto his fingers inside her. He grins, wicked, and gives her an image that makes a wave of desire pulse back through his thoughts. _Oh my god, yes, please,_ and she tips her head back into the pillows to give him all the access he needs. He doesn't try and tease, or gentle his touch - just nuzzles into her neck until he finds _that_ spot, just the perfect place that his mouth fits and it feels so good, and speeds his fingers up just as he sinks his teeth in hard.

Deanna moans and digs her fingers into his hair, hard enough in return that he can feel it ache, distantly, somewhere outside the pure focus he has on her right now. The way she feels under him, the hot scent of her, how she's writhing on his fingers and the taste of her skin against his tongue - it's intoxicating, all of it, and all of it amplified by the molten-gold fire of her open, honest need inside his mind. All he wants, all he can _think_ is her, to please her, to take her, to give her everything she needs…

She shudders when he lets go, again when he licks at the marks he can already feel he's left on her skin; she's already so close he can feel it, a familiar hot pressure in the back of his head and the way she's so tense, every inch of her body and mind caught up in just _needing_ this.

He kisses his way back up her neck, bites her earlobe and grins at the sharp catch in her already shallow breath. His own feels hot against her skin, into her ear. "Come for me, imzadi," and bright, joyous pleasure flares along the bond between them because she might be _Athadi_ now but she's still that, too, to him, will _always_ be that. "Let me make you come," and if he's pleading it's because he needs this as much as she does, now, and he'll do anything to get her there. _Let me,_ and he's never so glad of telepathy as at moments like this, when he needs his mouth to be on her skin, kissing and tasting and making her twitch and tremble underneath him.

She's so desperate, right on the edge and aching with it: the image she pushes into his head is split-second, razor sharp, and so perfect he only has to think _fuck, yeah,_ an instant promise, and then she's coming apart under him with a choked cry, shaking, her fingers twisting in his hair and gripping the sheets under her back.

He'd wait, dig around for some lube, but she's so wet he doesn't have to - he just slips his fingers out of her and slicks his cock up with a few long, wet strokes of his own hand, pressing his face back into her neck with a low groan at how good it feels, at the thought -

_Look at me, I want to watch, let me see you._

He grins and kisses her neck, wets his fingers inside her with a long, slow thrust that makes her shudder and clench her own in his hair again. He sends her a playful wince and tugs her hand free, pushes his fingers between hers: slides his other hand, wet from her all over again, further back and can't help thinking it - _fuck, you sound beautiful_ \- when Deanna moans and squeezes his fingers tight and tilts her hips up to let him reach.

 _Will._ It's softer, the pressure a little released now, but still desperate - what she needs is _him_ , inside her, in every possible way she can have him. _Please, let me see._

He moves just enough to press his forehead to hers, a little harder than gentle, and he's rewarded by a smile that takes his breath away as she opens her eyes to meet his.

"Imzadi," he murmurs, takes himself in hand and lines up just right and pushes _in_ , slow and careful and deep.

Deanna gasps but it's all pleasure, warm and liquid; he can see it in her eyes, feel it tangling with his and there's so much of it because she's so hot and tight and - _god, you feel so good…_

 _Mmm, oh, so do you…_ She's breathing in sharp, quick breaths, and then he's all the way in and even without either of them moving, she's shaking under him all over again: he groans and bites his cheek hard, Deanna digs her nails into the back of his hand, her heels into his back. _Put your fingers back inside me, I want to feel you everywhere._

He's half a breath from just fucking her ass until they're both too sore to move - and she knows it - but he's _never_ going to refuse a command like that. He doesn't wait, just presses his fingers tight together and slides them all into her, just as slow, just as careful, but just as insistent - he can feel her open and stretch around his hand, and she makes a soft, half-broken sound and grips the back of his neck. _Oh my god, oh - Will -_

He grins at her, bright and slightly wild, and rubs his thumb across her clit.

Deanna _mewls_ , out loud and in his head, and he's pretty sure her nails draw blood but it's worth it just to hear that, to _feel_ that.

" _Fuck,_ I want you so much…" His voice comes out without thinking, rough and easy and honest the way he can only be with her. It might not have been his need that started this, but it's just as real now as hers, so knotted together there's no telling them apart. "You feel so good, I just want to-"

Deanna drags his mouth down to hers and kisses him hard. _If you don't stop talking and start -_

She doesn't even have to tell him once - he moves like she's simply set him loose, starts to thrust with his hips and hand both and even the thought falls apart into just a tangle of pleasure, a mess of _oh god yes_ and _please_ and _harder_.

He untangles his hand from hers and slides his arm under her back, lifting her up for a better angle that makes her sob and buck against him: Deanna digs her fingers back into his hair the instant she can, and it hurts but it only adds to how good everything feels. She pushes his head down and he goes more than willingly, kissing his way down her neck, her chest, until his lips are on the soft rise of her breast and he just can’t not, especially when he can feel her _wanting_ –

One bite is enough to make her gasp and cry out and arch into his mouth - the whimper of _ohhh gods_ in his head is entirely hot, dark need, only just coherent. The second time, he sucks her whole nipple into his mouth and sinks his teeth in around it and Deanna sobs, desperate, _don't stop don't stop_

He gives her what he knows is going to send her over the edge - just the wordless, bright, white-hot sensation of what he can feel right now. _His cock pounding into her ass, deep and hard and desperate and he's closer to coming with every rough stroke; his fingers curled deep inside her and she feels so incredible stretched around them; the way her clit feels, so thick and swollen, and she's so wet everywhere he can hardly keep his thumb on her without slipping; her skin so hot between his teeth, her nipple so tight under his tongue -_

Deanna comes just about as fast and hard as he's ever felt, and he feels all of it - the tight, rippling way she clenches around his fingers and his cock, the liquid rush all over his hand, the way she shakes and sobs and her nails scratch along the length of his shoulders, the breaking wave of pleasure that crashes into his head and wipes out everything else. He falls with her because he _has_ to, there's no possible way he can't - one last sharp thrust and he's coming in long, hard pulses deep inside her ass and Deanna moans all over again, and now he's the one shaking and groaning out something completely incoherent as the hot flare of his orgasm washes through them both.

It's not even close to where they can take each other, but there's definitely a minute or two of time that goes missing, regardless. When he comes back to himself, at least a little, it's to the sound of her heart thudding hard under his cheek; he's slipped out of her but her legs are still wrapped around him, and there's the feeling of her fingertips gently massaging his scalp and his entire body tingling… or is it hers? It's one of those times when he's not entirely sure.

Deanna laughs, soft and very unsteady, from the pillows above him. _Both. I think._

The curve of her breast is close enough that he can kiss it with only a slight shift of his head, so he does. His eyes aren't entirely focused, but there are definite bite marks settling into her skin. He smiles lazily. _So, did that do the trick?_

 _I'm going to be sore all day tomorrow._ The thought is full of happy, satisfied pleasure. Her fingertips trail down his cheek. _Thank you._

This time he laughs, because that gratitude in her mind always tastes so sweet but just a little ridiculous. _You're welcome, any time._ He catches her hand before she can take it back, pressing his lips into her palm. _Though if I could have at least a few hours to recharge, that'd be great._

Deanna gives him a tender mental kiss, lazy and sated, and the comfortably grounding sense of his weight covering her. _Mmm, take as long as you like, so long as you stay right there._

He grins into her palm, threading his fingers back between hers and nuzzling between her breasts. _Mmm, well, if you insist…_

 _I do,_ and his grin widens at the way she readjusts her legs around him, just to make sure. They're always so tangled together at these moments, it's impossible for him not to know how much she loves having him so thoroughly languid and heavy in her arms, on top of her, and he's never going to complain.

 _I'm still going to kill both of them,_ she thinks, absently, and he chuckles.

_You think we're making them think about what they're missing out on?_

Deanna toys with his hair, idle and gentle, spiking it up between her fingers. _I think I_ will _make them, if they don't soon._

He puts a smirk in his mental voice; _Don't push them, you said…_

 _I may be reconsidering that position._ Her tone is half-serious but her mental fingertips are playful, licking at the afterglow in his head. _Although, perhaps, a little unresolved sexual tension sometimes..._

He grins. _If it's resolved like that, count me in._

 

*


End file.
